Angels

“I’m thinking we just go down the list, two today, two tomorrow. That means we’re starting with angels. Any objections?” I ask, looking around. No objections are raised, and so I open the tier 11 version of the angels dungeon. We’re dropped into a wide open space with surrounding background that looks ripped straight out of Asgard from the MCU.

“Begone foul beasts!” A yell comes from above us and I look up to see a pack of angels, flapping their wings and hovering steadily. Obviously flying is the gimmick for this dungeon. Their design is very reminiscent of the angels from the Darksiders games. Armour primarily golden in colour with some white sections to it, and very obviously angelic wings beating to keep them aloft.

Each of them grips a long handled, axe looking weapon that fits in with the theme. The handle is the same mixture of white and gold as their armour, while the twin blades extending out from an ornamented gold socket are shaped like angel wings. There looks to be about 30 of them in the air, and each of them have eyes glowing completely white.

Amused at the dungeon enemy’s words, I respond. “Foul beasts?” “You are a blight on our otherwise perfect world! Leave us be, or we will slay you like we have slain so many others!” One of them speaks. “Well at least Gaia is definitely giving us more interesting enemy designs.” Mia comments, cracking her knuckles.

I answer the challenge by firing a mana blast at the one who spoke. It burns a hole through it’s armour, looking like it deals some damage. The angel doesn’t react in pain and instead speaks. “So be it. Show these invaders no mercy!” It’s unnecessary for me to yell any kind of warning to my girlfriends as the angels attack.

Their wings folding behind them, they swoop downwards, brandishing their ornate weapons. Immediately Skylar puts up a barrier between us and the diving angels. A rapid series of impacts are heard before the barrier breaks. Mia sends out a shove of air at them while Ivy manifests shields on both arms to protect herself.

I decide to forego my usual ice magic and use fire instead. It’s not particularly powerful, but maybe a bombardment of fireballs can burn their unprotected wings and reduce their ability to fly. With that in mind, I throw out a quick series of fireballs, aimed at the wings of some of the incoming angels.

The bad angle makes aiming pretty difficult, but I still manage to hit half the volley I sent out, right on target. The other fireballs either sail past or hit the angels on the shoulder. My hunch is proven correct as the wings on the several angels I managed to hit, start to burn up.

I duck as some of them swoop over me, missing me by a hair with the swings of their axes. The flying ability of the ones I hit on the wings is visibly reduced. They retreat upwards slower, and seem to be expending more effort for worse results as their comrades. “Aim for their wings!” I shout, letting loose more spells.

I have a mana bar that’s currently at a 1304MP maximum. I regenerate 2MP per second after Ivy’s summoning cost. The fireball spell costs 10MP. I can spam these like nothing else, and that’s mostly what I do during the course of the fight.

Ivy doesn’t have many offensive options, and what she does have is pretty ineffective against these enemies. She’s mainly a healer anyway so that’s what she focuses on, with her shields being adequate to defend against the swooping attacks that are the bread and butter of this dungeon. They sometimes break, but she has the mana to spare to reconjure them.

Mia and Skylar are both decently effective against these enemies. Mia uses her flight ability to help even the playing field against the angels, slashing her swords through their wings as often as she can. Skylar for her part, does her best to slice through their wings from the ground and take out the fallen angels that Mia and I manage to drop.

My fire magic is working wonders though. “I can feel the pyromania!” I giggle happily, sending out more fireballs at an incoming angel, who drops to the ground as his wings are scorched to a crisp. “Is that a Def Leppard reference?” Skylar calls back, skewering the angel in front of me with a spear of shadows.

“Not an intentional one!” I cackle, swiping at another with my axe. It dodges narrowly and responds with an attack in kind. I let mana shield take the impact, curious to see what the numbers are. 350MP is obliterated from the attack as I let loose more fire at the angels’ wings. The spell isn’t a super high level yet, but it is useful to be able to absorb melee attacks without flinching.

Still, I should spend a day power levelling that spell if possible. Go into an easy dungeon and stand there taking attacks until my mana runs out. Definitely not dangerous at all. The thought runs through my head. My axe isn’t much of a useful weapon against the angels, so I put it away and focus on dodging and using my magic the best I can.

Beside me, Mia crashes to the ground with a loud thump. A bit worried, I turn to her. “You okay?” I ask. She grins back at me. “Never better. Let’s kick their asses babe!” She says, launching herself back into the air to face our flying enemies once more. Smiling, I continue to thin the ranks of those actually flying.

At the start of the dungeon, their numbers were a disadvantage. They couldn’t all dive bomb us at once, so they had to take turns. Now with about half the angels in the sky that there were at the start, it becomes much easier for each of them to maneuver individually.

A lone angel swoops towards me and I decide to try something. I fire a mana chain towards it, aiming for one of the wings. It connects to the angel’s arm instead, and I mentally shrug. Still holding the chain, I dive to the side, aiming to pull the angel off balance with my strength and bodyweight.

The ploy works, and the angel flails wildly, it’s attack pattern disrupted. Skylar takes the opportunity and slices the wings off of it’s body. Or she tries to, she only manages to cut halfway through before her magic loses power. With a grunt of pain, the angel wrenches away from my grasp and I disconnect the chain a millisecond before I feel the **** of the pull.

The angel backhands Skylar and sends her sprawling. I’m already halfway through an axe swing aimed directly at it’s wings, and it turns back to me, too late to dodge the blow. It brings up the axe in a block that’s too slow to get in position in time. My axe sheers through the joint connecting one of it’s wings.

A grunt of pain, and I swing the axe around, gathering power for a slash directly at it’s neck. The angel deflects the blow downwards, sending me forward off balance. It tries to stab at me with the pointy head of the axe, but instead of fighting my forward momentum, I go with it and roll forwards, out of the way of the glinting weapon.

The angel beats it’s remaining wing in an effort to fly, but only succeeds in gaining a couple of metres distance. I let loose a pair of fireballs at the other wing, successfully burning holes into the appendage, rendering it useless. It’s biggest advantage over me lost, it steps towards me and slashes downwards.

I lithely dodge to the left of the blade hissing through the air, putting my entire body into the **** of my counter swing that the angel is once again, too slow too dodge. My axe connects in the small gap between the gauntlet and the bicep armour, relieving the artificial enemy of one of it’s arms.

I follow up the advantage by driving my shoulder into it, sending it off balance. It staggers away from me, it’s back turned and it’s weapon swinging around uselessly. I stow my axe and quick as lightning, bridge the gap between us once more and jump onto it’s back, wrapping my legs around it’s torso.

The angel flails around, dropping the axe and reaching behind itself to try to throw me off. I place both hands on the back of it’s head, aiming forwards. Point blank, I fire mana bolts into it’s head. The enemy dissolves into dust immediately, and I land nimbly on my feet.

“Why don’t you ever wrap your legs like that around me?” Mia asks playfully as she lands beside me. I grin at her, surveying the remaining angels. “You never asked.” The aeromancer giggles as she catches her breath from spending so long in the air. Usually she’s alternating between air and ground combat, not staying almost exclusively in the air like today.

“Then please, crush me with those thunder thighs mistress!” She says, and I laugh. “What? I do not have thunder thighs!” I reply. “I guess you haven’t noticed hun, but you absolutely do.” Ivy interjects, rushing over to heal Mia from the damage she’s sustained. “When did that happen?” I ask in disbelief, readying a volley of fireballs as the remaining three angels still in the air prepare to dive at us.

“A bit when you raised your agility, and a bit when you raised your strength.” Ivy reports, manifesting one of her shields while she heals Mia. Mia prepares herself for another blast of air to disrupt the angels’ flight. Skylar battles on the ground with one of the fallen angels, using spears of shadow to stab at weak points in the armour.

“I love you girls so much!” I can’t help but say as the angels dive and Mia unleashes a shockwave once they get close enough. At the same time as the angels are blasted back and off balance, I take aim and send out a volley of fireballs. Each of the angels has their wings scorched from the barrage of spells, and they drop from the sky one by one.

It’s trivial to finish them off after that. We rip through the last few angels and stop for a few seconds to take a breather before the boss spawns. “You okay Skylar?” I ask. She nods, a little tired. “I’m alright. I’m able to keep up with this tier of enemies, but I’m not sure how many more I’m going to be able to do.” She admits.

I give her a hug and kiss her on the forehead. “We’ll figure it out, my love.” I tell her. She smiles up at me. “I know we will. I trust you.” A rumbling sound breaks the moment that we’re having. “Get ready for the boss!” I call out, looking around for the source of the sound. At that moment, a large shape hits the ground. Wings unfurl to reveal the boss.