LTSV - Harbingers of Change - 12 (Patreon)

It was during their fourth goblin skirmish that things really started to fall apart.

A larger-than-usual pack of goblins jumped them as they got closer to the exit-zone; easily twice the size of the groups they’d already fought.

Mira had been thinking that things had been going a little too easy for their group and it was just about time for the universe to humble them. The others were doing well, but the goblins were hardly enemies at all. They were almost more of an environmental hazard. They didn’t have any strategy except for aggression and numbers. Worse still, Mira wasn’t even sure they were getting experience or levels for fighting the things. The System had been silent on the subject.

They’d found a parking lot with some weedy looking flower bushes that Cece’s appraisal identified as being useful for her craft. Most of the herbs weren’t of much use except to Cece, specifically, but some of them said they were components for stamina potions and so were of intense interest to Randall and Will. Even Alan had gotten in on the harvest, although he was still keeping half an eye on Andrei. That was starting to worry Mira.

Obviously, she’d never hung around this crew when they were still new to one another so she couldn’t tell if this was normal behavior. She usually didn’t run into them until after they’d had a chance to gel. Had Peleon needed this same level of housebreaking from the others in her first life? Or was this one of the things that ‘would be different going forward?’

Mira was standing guard with Penny, Andrei, and Bryn when a hissing shriek broke over them and an absolute tidal wave of goblins appeared in the distance, scrambling forward, hissing, and shrieking loud enough to wake the dead.

They were moving so fast that they were on top of Mira’s group almost as soon as she spotted them. The team was caught by surprise.

Bryn got a chance to literally pick Mira up and throw her back towards the parking lot before he took the brunt of the charge with his shield in his off hand. Cece managed to get off a Bless on Bryn and then on Andrei before the goblins cut around the boys and tried to swarm the line of casters. Randall and Alan put themselves between Mira, Will, Cece, and the goblins, but you could see on their faces that they were panicking. They were doing their best, but it had been a long day and the bravado that they’d started out with was starting to fade as the reality of this hellscape had begun to penetrate. Even Penny was struggling to keep the area around Cece clear so they didn’t lose their healer.

For a second, Mira thought they might turn it all around. It was a hard fight, but their enemies were made out of spite and tissue paper, basically. They might take some injuries, but so long as nobody panicked then they'd come out okay—then one of those howls sounded from nearby and they got a glimpse of one of the real monsters roaming this Dungeon.

It was a huge red-brown wolf-like creature with a dark stripe down its spine and rosettes along its sides; easily the size of a draft horse with huge fangs and a long, long tail with a tuft at the end.

[Gévaudan: a Lupine Dungeon Creature that appears as a common Field Boss and has also been spotted outside of Dungeons in low-mana environments, making it a common cryptid on pre-Incursion worlds. As it can survive on little to no mana, it consequently has no magical attacks or resistances. Gévaudans hunt in small packs from 2-4 individuals and have been known to range far from their packmates, but Hunters are advised to be cautious. If you see one, there is at least one more somewhere nearby and, if they don’t hear their packmate checking in with the group every so often, they will come looking for it. They are fast, intelligent, and ruthless. It is inadvisable to get into an extended fight with a Gévaudan or the rest of the pack will catch up.]

The Gévaudan didn’t seem very interested in them. It was trotting down the shattered street, following a scent, and headed in the direction of the exit zone. They had well over twenty hours left on their countdown to the Dungeon Break so Mira was inclined to let it fuck off, if it wanted to.

More importantly, her elemental dart spells were not cutting it in this scenario. She needed an AOE spell and she needed one fast. There were enough goblins that she had to choose between two bads; bank on winning a battle of attrition or sacrifice a comparatively smaller amount of SP to wipe a bunch of them out at once.

“Everyone get clear of the space in front of me!” she shouted, already picturing her solution.

Bryn used ‘cover’ on Cece to clear out of her way. Randall and Alan also fell back, but just as Mira thought she had a clear field, Andrei charged into the gap right as she felt the spell ‘gel’ in her hands and she released it.

[Congratulations! Web Lightning has been added to your spell list and will be available for purchase from other spellcasters in your market who qualify to learn this spell.]

Lightning arced between Mira’s fingers and leaped from her hand to the nearest goblin, ripping through its thin chest before jumping to the next two nearest, then the next four, and the next eight, and on until Mira had wiped out all but three of their enemies. The lightning ripped past and around Andrei, close enough to leave brown singes across the front of the hooded shirt under his jacket. He swore as he jumped back.

Mira whooped as her adrenaline soared in the wake of a successful spell. It wasn’t something she was ever proud of, but this was the kind of fighting she’d been born for; wiping out huge swathes of enemy combatants who were beneath her individual notice. It wasn’t for nothing that her soldiers had thought she was a monster in her first life. She’d played the villainess for a reason.

She might have realized, too late, that she’d made a mistake when the remaining goblins focused on her as the primary threat and charged at her. Unfortunately for them, Mira’s blood was up. A wide grin stretched across her face as she took in the goblins. They weren't looking like creatures now; more like mobile targets for her frustrations who came with the added benefit of potential XP.

Mira swung her goblin staff around to catch two of them in mid-leap, hitting one in the neck and the other in its midsection. As she’d guessed earlier, the staff did decent work as a long-handled mace or a single-weighted staff even if it was a shitty magical apparatus. The two goblins went flying and hit a low wall framing the parking lot. One died on impact and the other fell down stunned.

She spun the staff in her hands as another goblin came at her with a twisted little shiv. She used the light end to end to parry its wide slash. She tangled its wrist with the end of her staff, directing the rotation of her weapon against the natural range of motion in its wrist in order to force it to drop its weapon. Then she brought the heavy end of the staff down on its head from above.

The remaining goblin, the one that had survived its impact with the wall, charged blindly at her. She met its charge with a kick to the chin that sent both it and one of her shoes flying. She felt its fragile bones crunch on impact. They really were fragile. It hit the ground a few feet away and didn’t move again.

Chest heaving, Mira turned around to look for more enemies. All she found were her teammates, staring at her. Well, most of her teammates. Cece, Will, Randall, and Bryn were staring at her with their jaws dropped. Alan was half-turned away and had this look on his face like dawning horror. Mira turned to follow the line of his gaze and her blood ran cold too when she saw Andrei release the rock he’d just wound up, baseball-style, to throw at the retreating back of the Gévaudan.

Several things happened at once.

Alan bellowed, “ASSHOLE, DO NOT!”

Mira shrieked with inarticulate outrage.

The others started to turn to see what Alan was angry about.

The rock flew.

Bryn grabbed Cece around the waist, turned, and barreled towards Mira. He caught her by the waist too and charged away from the Gévaudan with one girl over each shoulder. The new position gave Mira a stellar view of Alan, Will, and Randall’s pale faces as they scrambled to follow.

As much as being carried annoyed her, Mira realized quickly that Bryn was onto something. This position left her hands free for spellcasting and it wasn't like she or Cece had tons of stamina to spare. Tactically, this wasn't a bad idea.

Andrei didn’t realize, right away, that he’d been left behind. His rock stuck the Gévaudan in the flank and it stopped, paused, and slowly looked back in their direction with an expression that plainly read, ‘Did someone really just do that?’ She could see the intelligence in its eyes as it assessed the situation; Andrei eagerly brandishing his sword at it while the rest of his torn and battered team got the fuck out. She could see it debate with itself whether to go about its business or take an easy win.

It huffed a sigh, turned, and walked straight into Penny.

Penny had been covering their retreat without being asked. When the Gévaudan started to pursue them, she dropped back and phased into invisibility. She struck at the Gévaudan face, concentrating her strikes around its eyes and snout. It backed up, yelped, and turned again to disengage.

The Gévaudan had already passed on them once and it apparently just decided that it wasn’t about to fight an invisible monster for the privilege of chasing a group that had almost gotten routed by a pack of trash mobs. It turned and ran off at a speed where they would never be able to catch it.

Andrei wilted and turned. That’s when he realized that they’d ditched him. “Aw, man… HEY!!”

The others didn’t stop. Bryn ran until they were back at the Safe Room. The cooldown period had passed a long time ago, so the door swung open at his approach and let them inside. Bryn dropped Cece and Mira onto their feet and went to go cover the door as the other boys followed them in—or, almost all the boys.

Randall and Alan hung back as Will collapsed just inside the entrance, wheezing. He sounded like he was on the verge of an asthma attack, but something was preventing him from slipping over that edge. Cece went over and hit him with what had to be her last ‘Bless’ before she exhausted her mana. His breathing eased and he slumped onto the floor.

When Andrei tried to follow them inside, Randall blocked the door and Alan shoved him back hard.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Alan snarled. He looked like he was just a second away from beating Andrei’s ass. “What the fuck did you think you were doing, pulling a mob like that before we even finished the last group?”

“It was getting away!” Andrei defended himself, but he was also starting to frown. “Why are you on my ass all the time? I can’t fight a monster or pick up anything without you getting in my face.”

Randall carefully inserted himself in between the two men before they got any further in each other’s faces.

“Hey, I think we need to manage some expectations,” he said. “Andrei, I get it. We’re all running on instinct and you’re doing your best, but we were not ready to fight that thing. Did you inspect it? It had a skull emblem over its name. The System flat out told me not to fight it when I looked. We could have gotten killed, man.”

An ugly flush started to rise up from Andrei’s collar. “We were fine!” he insisted. “The goblins were down. What was I supposed to do, let it come get us later?”

“Yeah, because we were all exhausted and rattled,” Randall insisted with more patience than Mira would have managed. “I know almost all my skills were on cooldown and Cecelia was almost out of mana when we stopped to gather reagents. Remember?”

“So, what is this?” Andrei asked, looking back and forth between Alan and Randall. “You’re gonna lock me out of the Safe Room if I don’t roll over for you? Tuck my tail between my legs and do whatever you want? Nah, man. Fuck that. I’ve been putting up with a lot of shit from you all today, especially you,” he reached around to shove Alan in the chest. “I’m trying to keep us alive while you’re hunched over my shoulder, trying to count everything in my pockets!”

Bryn had caught his breath by then and went over to join the other boys outside. He didn’t say anything, but Mira noticed he was standing between Andrei and all the spellcasters inside. She wasn’t sure what to make of that—or, rather, she was. She just didn’t want to admit it.

Andrei kept going and pointed at Mira, “That bitch over there nearly fried me earlier, but I don’t see you saying anything to her about it!”

“Don’t bring her into this, asshole,” Alan snarled. “You think we’re gonna stop an AOE just because you didn’t want to pay attention when she told us to clear out? She was doing her fucking job. I can’t say the same about you!”

“I was doing my job!” Andrei shouted back. “I saw a monster, I was gonna kill a fucking monster!”

“Is that it?” Alan sneered. He rocked back on one heel with his arms crossed over his chest as he looked Andrei up and down. “Or did you antagonize that thing because you realized a girl was about to beat your DPS and your ego couldn’t handle it?”

Note:

Oh no, Andrei in a setting where they already know about toxic gamer behavior.