Chapter Five-Hundred Seven (Patreon)

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Vnarl

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The raid is going better than their first fight with Poe, but that’s not saying much.  He and his friends have gotten a lot stronger, and a lot more coordinated since then, but Poe clearly hasn’t been slacking.

They have a nest all to themselves, thanks to how well they do with area attacks.  If you’re not used to working together with a group like theirs, you’re likely to be caught up in the pain.  They’ve coordinated with the others for the raid on the Betrayer, but Poe’s been doing a good job of making it hard to coordinate in the battle.

From the caws to the swarming birds, and even the restricted places to stand now, Poe’s whole theme has been about not letting the delvers work together as smoothly as they’d prefer.  After this, Vnarl bets everyone’s going to want some kind of communication gear.  It’s only after it’s taken away that you realize how important it is.

Still, they’re holding their own well enough.  The harpies are tough enough to need them to focus on, but not tough enough for them to actually worry.  All of them keep their eyes peeled, looking through the insane flock of birds, and at their companions in the other nests.

Poe is somewhere in the cloud of birds, but he doesn’t reveal himself for long, if at all.  A blade of wind will come from seemingly nowhere, and Hark has been good at intercepting the ones that head their own way.  The other platforms have been having mixed results.

When they see the blade coming, it’s simple enough for the shields to intercept, but with the chaos around them, some get through without anyone noticing.  So far, Vnarl hasn’t seen anyone outright defeated by a wind blade yet, but he also can only see a few other nests through all the birds.

Suddenly, everything shifts in a way he at first can’t describe.  It’s like he’s tumbling through the air, but he can feel his feet still on the nest!  He manages to keep his swords, even as he feels nausea rising, his eyes and his balance disagreeing strongly on what’s happening.  He takes a gamble and closes his eyes, and though his equilibrium is all over the place, he feels less like throwing up.

It, mercifully, only lasts for a few seconds, though it takes him a few seconds more to recover and rejoin his friends in the fight.  Before he can try to ask them what happened, he sees Hark stumble and land heavily on his rear, not even bothering to try to catch his returning boomerangs.

Watching his friend, Vnarl’s eyes widen as he realizes what’s happening.  He’s heard rumors of Thedeim having a trick to annihilate someone’s balance, but he’d never seen it before.  Poe must be using it!  He steps closer to his friend, catching a surprise blade of wind on his swords that might have taken him out of the fight!  But just like himself, the attack quickly passes, and Hark jumps back to his feet to help keep the birds at bay.

Mlynda calls her wolf to her and they both lay down in anticipation of the attack, and from the way her head suddenly starts whipping around, Vnarl would say she’s dealing with it now, too. The pressure is higher with her temporarily incapacitated, but he and Hark keep her and her wolf safe long enough for it to pass.

Once she stands again, they all exchange a look.  The flock doesn’t seem to be thinning, though it’s hard to say if Poe is still getting reinforcements, or if he simply had that many to start with.  Either way, just standing here and attacking the flock isn’t going to get them a victory.

Time to cut loose and see if they can actually take a bite out of this flock!  Hark fills the area around them with boomerangs as Vnarl can feel Mlynda’s vines dig into his arms.  He still doesn’t like it, but letting them hold his swords for him just gives him so much reach!  The pain is worth it for that!  The wolf joins in as well, icicles forming and launching as the team-up attack builds!

Then everything lurches without lurching again, and everyone’s concentration is shattered!  It’s not as long as the first attack, but still enough to ruin their coordination.  They recover quickly, only a second or two, and it’s a good thing.

A huge mass of branches and brambles is hurtling toward them, the parts of the arena that were picked up!  Their first instinct is to team up again, but their adventurer instincts scream for them to stop.  If they get stunned again, they won’t recover in time to deal with the attack!

But they can still coordinate without committing to a team-up attack, and without even needing words, either.  They’ve all worked together long enough to know what the others are going to do.  The massive ball of wood and leaves is too much for them to stop, but they’re not out of options.

Mlynda directs the wolf to focus on freezing a line through the mass, embrittling it enough for Hark to start cutting through.  Vnarl steps toward the edge of the nest, planting his feet and rolling his shoulders.  His friends swiftly work to cut the mass in half, and as they near completion, the ball nears the nest.

At the last instant, he whips the vines forward, stabbing into the thick brambles before heaving!  He doesn’t need to try to lift or stop it, just redirect it! He forces the two halves to the side as his friends line up behind him.  He can’t force them far enough apart to clear the nest, but he can clear a spot for everyone to stand in.  The attack crashes onto the nest before continuing off, vanishing into the mass of spatial vines writhing well below them.

They all pant and take stock, seeing a few other nests are now free of adventurers.  On the bright side, though, the flock seems to be visibly thinning now, making it much easier to track where Poe is, and to see how many nests are still fighting.  It looks like a few are still dealing with their own hurled chunks of the tree, but there don’t seem to be many more floating around.

With the flock thinned, a few ranged and magic attacks streak toward Poe, before suddenly veering off course.  A few more come at him, though these only wobble instead of missing entirely.  A few birds swoop in to intercept, taking the damage instead.  The message is clear: they can’t hit him until the birds are gone.

But they can’t remove the birds with combination attacks, either!  The flock may be thinned, but there’s still at least as many as he used when he first came to deal with Vnarl and his friends, so many months ago.

And it seems he intends to finish this fight in a similar way.  He caws once more, focusing the flock on a single nest, while Poe himself ensures the other nests can’t interfere!  Attacks either drop far too quickly, or are intercepted by a blade of wind.  In only a handful of seconds, the flock moves on, the nest scoured of the adventurers that were just there.

Poe goes through the nests, picking off a few weaker ones before his eyes fall on Vnarl’s group.  On the one hand, they’re the last nest with only a single party.  On the other hand, they’re one of the stronger parties in Fourdock.  It may be smarter for him to attack a different nest… but how can the huge raven resist a rematch?

The swarm and the Marshal dive on them, and Hark falters under whatever Poe is doing to destroy their balance.  But they’re not the same party he fought back then.  They’re closer than ever before, and even with their ears ringing from the caws of the birds, they move together even without needing to speak.

Poe only disables one of them at a time, and even with one down and one recovering, there’s still two of them to fight off the swarm and the scion himself.  The wolf’s attacks savage the birds, the icicles impaling them as quickly as he can summon them.  Hark can pressure both the flock and Poe himself, his boomerangs cutting down swaths of birds while Poe still needs to keep an eye out for an attack to loop back on him.  He can force them to fall out of the air, but if he’s focused on that, he’s less focused on the debilitating attack.

Mlynda’s vines whip and lash at the birds, while Vnarl does his best to focus on Poe himself.  He’s strong and quick, able to weave through Vnarl’s sweeping attacks, though many of the dwindling birds get caught.  The scion finally lands on the nest, his cold eyes landing on the adventurers, the last of his flock falling around him.

Vnarl pants, as do his friends.  Their mana’s low after all that, but Poe is also out of birds.  Can they take him?  From the way the scion’s looking at them, Vnarl’s not sure.  Poe makes the first move, surprising them all.

He nods at them and bows, with a surrender notice coming up half a heartbeat later.  Vnarl and his friends gape at Poe, the huge raven lowering himself and getting comfortable on the nest.

“Surrender…?” asks Hark, his quiet question carrying through the sudden silence atop the tree.  Vnarl echoes the question in his mind, before he gets another notice.  His eyes widen as he takes it in, and the others look at him, wondering what’s going on.

“He surrendered to us… and as our group’s leader, I have a decision,” he says, still trying to understand the situation.  “I can kill him, and we’ll get experience and normal drops… or we can release him for extra loot.”

Hark and Mlynda both look like Vnarl’s gone mad, and if this were in any other dungeon, he’d think they’re right.  But this is Thedeim.  The troll smiles at that thought.  If any dungeon would pay a ransom for a scion, it’d be him, even if it’s a bit of a farce.  If Thediem wanted, he could pull Poe through a shortcut and leave them with nothing.

Vnarl sheaths his swords and lets the vines fall.  “Ransom!” he declares for all the adventurers to hear, and he can feel Poe smiling at him before he dives off the nest and into a shortcut.  Vnarl grins at his choice, even as the adventurers in the other nests look confused.

Their confusion doesn’t last long, as raven harpies start to descend on each nest, carrying a heavy chest each.  Vnarl’s grin is as wide as can be as he watches their own chest lowered into the nest.

He can get experience anywhere, but there’s a lot of items only Thedeim has to offer.  No way is he passing up the chance to get even more!