TS5: Chapter 38 (Patreon)

[Thorn, we’ve engaged the first wave. There are six enemies, each wielding a trident. Be careful, as they have water magic as well. Its a bolt that they shoot out of their mouth. They have a two second charge up period, and their attacks are all tier eight at least. You have about four minutes until the two waves arrive.]

Hearing Velin’s voice, Thorn peered into the thick blue fog that shrouded the northern path, looking for any hint of movement. Though his mental sense could normally stretch a few miles, he found it hard to penetrate the dense water mana that filled the paths, making it inefficient to stretch his awareness much beyond the three hundred feet that he could already see. Glancing over his shoulder toward the southern path, he saw Akira sitting on a large stone that sat by the shrine, nibbling on the cookie that he had given her. She must have sensed his attention, because she looked up and smiled at him, her eyes turning into a cute crescent as her chubby cheeks rose.

A shift in his awareness alerted Thorn that the enemies that he was waiting for had arrived. At the same time that the fog parted, his E.V.E. chimed, alerting him that Velin and the others had engaged the next wave of enemies. Turning his attention back to the path, Thorn saw a hunched figure with an awkward lurching gait appear. A wide, catfish head with sharp teeth and trembling whiskers appeared first, the fish man’s bulging eyes glaring at him with a fierce and focused determination. Another fish man appeared from the fog behind the first, followed by four more in rapid succession.

Not wanting to give them a chance to launch their attacks, Thorn lifted his halberd and charged, bringing his weapon down in a wicked arc that left swirling trails of mana in the air. The first fish man hissed, lifting his trident to try and block the attack, while the others all backed up and spread out, their mouths opening up wide. Blue mana began to gather into swirling balls that rapidly condensed down into the bolts that Velin had warned Thorn about, but before the first one could be launched, Thorn’s attack landed, the purplish-black edge of his void blade eating through the blocking trident without any difficulty.

Taken aback by his weapon’s failure to block, the fish man tried to retreat, but Thorn was still moving forward and his reach was too great. Extending his arms slightly, the tip of the halberd ripped through the fish man’s chest, obliterating the monster's thick scales as it cut from shoulder to hip. The fish man’s hiss had not yet faded when Thorn’s stroke was finished, and with a choking cry, the fish man crumpled to the ground. Almost immediately, Thorn saw the water bolts released by the other monsters shooting toward him and with a snap, he summoned three mana shields to block them.

Because his enemy was all spread out, he had a moment of indecision as he tried to decide who to attack next, but before he could, he felt a wave of heat at his back and heard a loud boom. Spinning around he saw that Akira had transformed into her battle form, unleashing a powerful wave of flame that had transformed the six fish men attacking from the southern path into ash. Not wanting to fall behind, he summoned a spell of his own, channeling a thick bolt of lightning into his halberd and hacking at the closest enemy. With his mana barriers blocking the ranged attacks that the fish men launched at him, and lightning dancing from the tip of his halberd, he quickly hacked his way through the five remaining enemies. The last of them had just fallen to the ground when the sound of a bell rang out and Thorn felt the world ripple and shift.

His surroundings transformed back into the large, tiled room that he had first entered, and he saw the rest of the party standing in front of him. None of them looked wounded, and as Lyssia appeared in front of them, she had a slight smile on her lips.

“Well done,” she said. “I see that you have been paying attention. You have completed the first stage of the water shrine’s team challenge. Would you like to challenge the second level?”

Walking over to where Velin stood, Thorn saw that Pel was looking at him, so he held up his hands.

“Don’t look at me, I’m not in charge.”

Slightly surprised by his willingness to leave everything to her, she looked around at the rest of the group to make sure that no one was against the idea before turning back to face the Lady of the Waves. Bowing respectfully, she nodded.

“Yes, we would like to challenge the second level of the shrine.”

“Good. The second level is where the test truly begins. Each minion squad will have increased strength, and more powerful individual minions called warriors will be summoned on each path. Additionally, the task will be different. Rather that needing to reach my location, you will have to bypass the guardian who guards my shrine before you can destroy it. Good luck.”

A moment later the team was back in the water shrine map once more, facing the three different paths. At first it looked like nothing had changed, but on closer inspection Thorn noticed a few differences in the carvings on the shrine they stood in front of. Additionally, the placement of many of the coral rock formations were different, indicating that they were on a new map.

“How do you want to handle this,” Thorn asked Pel.

“I think we can use the same strategy,” Pel said, peering into the blue fog. “Last time, we fought two squads, each ten minutes apart, but they’re likely going to be coming more quickly this time. Additionally, we need to watch out for warriors that the Lady of the Waves mentioned. Until we know just how strong they are, its going to be hard to identify how we should handle them. Plus, because we don’t have the time component that the last mission did, we should take it slower. I’d like to increase the number of people we have guarding the two paths.”

“We also need to make sure that we have enough strength to take down the shrine guardian who is at the end of the path,” Vesna said.

“We could just send Thorn to do that,” Mina said, causing the others to look at her skeptically. “The Lady of the Waves said that we would have to bypass the guardian, not that we would have to kill them. Thorn can not only move around them, but his magic is specifically built for taking buildings apart.”

“I’m not sure it will be that easy,” Borish said, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of Thorn taking point.

“Lets focus on the same strategy as before,” Pel said, waving her hand. “Thorn and Akira can defend the top path, and we’ll send Stello and Kendal down the south path. However, instead of just defending here, I would like each of you to push forward up the paths. I have a feeling that we will need to understand the paths for future stages, so it would be nice to scout them now. The rest of us will attack through the central path, killing our way to the shrine and taking it down.”

With their plan set, the team split up, heading for their respective paths. During the last challenge, Thorn hadn’t pushed forward at all, but now he and Akira headed up the northern path, walking into the blue fog that shrouded the map. Jumping down from Thorn’s shoulder, Akira darted this way and that, examining all of the strange rocks and plants that dotted either side of the path. Surrounded by the thick blue fog, Thorn felt as if he was enveloped by the sea, and the colorful flora only added to that feeling. Seeing Akira stopping by a large rock, Thorn walked over and saw that the path split, angling off and disappearing into the fog.

“This must be one of the smaller paths that connects the main avenues,” he said.

“Should we explore it, master? I wonder where it goes?”

“No, lets stick to the main path,” Thorn replied. “I’m guessing that eventually we will need too, but right now we are just supposed to scout this main path and make sure the enemy doesn’t slip by.”

Continuing on the main path, they found half a dozen other paths that shot off into the fog before Thorn saw something looming in the distance. Getting closer, he saw that it was the ruins of a stone tower that looked like it had been hit with a powerful blast of energy. Thick stones were scattered around the ground at the base of the tower and there was a twisted metal structure that must have sat on the top of the tower. A swirl of nanites appeared above Thorn’s shoulder as Eve materialized, her eyes narrowed as she examined the ruined tower.

“Its interesting to find something like this here,” she said, flying over to land on the tangled metal frame. “Makes me wonder if there are other places like this where ideas we saw on earth were first envisioned.”

“You mean that we got to play games like this on earth because it was first done here?”

“I mean, the time line would make sense,” Eve said. “I can just imagine your dad entering the puzzle to train and seeing this style of challenge. Then, when he got to earth and needed to come up with games, he used this as a template.”

Scratching his chin, Thorn nodded.

“That makes sense to me. Looks like we have some company though, so we’ll have to explore more later.”

From the blue fog, half a dozen fish man monsters stomped into view. Though they looked largely the same, there was a brighter tint to the scales that covered their bodies, and their muscles were a bit larger. Additionally, they wore more armor and a couple of them had double bladed axes that looked like two fish tails attached to a bone handle. As soon as they saw Thorn, the axe wielding fish men howled and charged forward while the minions with tridents began to charge their blast attacks.

Striding forward, Thorn struck out with his halberd and was stunned when the fish man he targeted slipped to the side, avoiding the attack. The fish man hacked at Thorn’s shoulder with his double bladed axe, only to see his weapon bounce off Thorn’s armor, and a moment later, Thorn’s halberd tore through his waist. Even as Thorn cut down that first fish man warrior, the attacks from the others slammed into him, forcing him back a step. The other fish monster carrying an axe wasn’t dissuaded by his companion’s violent death and he launched his own attack, the wavy blade of his axe ripping through the air with a shriek.

From the corner of his eye, Thorn saw a crimson streak heading for the spread out fish men, but he was too busy blocking and counter attacking to pay much attention to what Akira was up to. By the time his halberd sliced through his opponent’s neck, Akira had burned the others into cinders, and the fight was over, leaving Thorn with a disgruntled feeling. He hadn’t really struggled against the two fish men that he fought, but it had certainly been more difficult than he anticipated, and that left him feeling like something was off. Trying to shake off the feeling, Thorn and Akira advanced up the path which turned to the east, toward the enemy shrine.

No more than five minutes had passed before Thorn and Akira found themselves face to face with the next squad of fish men who rushed forward to attack as soon as they caught sight of the Titan. This time, Thorn summoned two spell constructs, adding an ancient rune to power them up for good measure. From the spell construct on his right a roiling ball of lightning shot toward the enemy, splashing over them. As the spell exploded, it created a pool of crackling lightning that crawled all over the fish men, slowing their movements. A heartbeat later, the other spell triggered and thick stone spikes rose from the ground under them, slicing their bodies apart.

Akira, who had been about to jump from Thorn’s shoulder, paused and then settled back into her position, realizing there was no need for her to get involved. Lifting his halberd, Thorn summoned a third spell, focusing his arcane affinity to create a gravity spell that crushed the fish men into the stone spikes he had created, killing them all. The entire time, Thorn had not stopped walking forward, and by the time the last minion died, Thorn was only a few feet away from them. With barely a glance at the bodies, he continued moving forward, opening up his E.V.E. to check in with the main attack force.

The main team had been fighting their way up the central path, making good time as they overwhelmed the waves of minions that came down the path toward them. By the time the third wave had spawned, they were already fighting with the fifteen foot tall fish man guardian that stood in front of the shrine, and while Mina used her ice magic to tear through the minions, Vesna, Pel, and Borish eliminated the guardian. When it finally fell, they rushed forward, attacking the shrine with spells and fierce strikes until it crumbled to the ground.

Thorn had just arrived at the enemy base when he saw Velin’s vines tearing out the final pillar, causing the shrine’s roof to crash down. As soon as it landed the world rippled and they were sent out of the map once more, appearing in front of Lyssia, the Lady of the Waves.

“Congratulations on passing the second stage of the Water Shrine’s team challenge. Would you like to continue your challenge or will you wait?”

“What are the changes for the next challenge?” Pel asked.

Waving her hand, Lyssa transformed her silver fish into the map once more and pointed to three structures that appeared in the middle of each of the three routes.

“You may have noticed the ruined towers on the second stage map. In the third stage, these towers are active, and will attack you. Two of the three must be taken down before you can attack the shrine. Additionally, three heroic level enemies will be summoned to defend the towers and shrines and will be given command of the summoned minions. As with every stage, the minions you face will also be stronger.”

Throwing a quick glance at Thorn, Pel nodded her head.

“I’m confident that we have not yet reached our limit. We will challenge the third level.”