She had a choice here.
- Fight alongside the dragon to find an opportunity to one-shot the demon.
- Sneak around behind the paladin lines and attempt an assassination on the captain.
- Run to Ahryn’s side.
1 or 2 could end this fight. But could she really succeed at either? If she were more like Salos, an assassin with overwhelming single target attacks, then maybe one of those would have been the right answer.
But she was Cass. Tempest Blade barely hurt the paladins, forget scratching their captain. Even with the soul damage helping to even the playing field between them, Cass wasn’t optimistic about the amount of damage she could do to the man.
And she didn’t want to kill him.
She shook that last thought aside. It was a foolish impulse. She’d killed. She could—would have to—do it again.
Fighting alongside the dragon had similar problems. It was possible the dragon would create an opening for Cass to slide in and freeze the demon to death. But it was also possible the demon’s weird biology wouldn’t freeze. It was possible it could use its blood revival skill to recover from freezing.
In contrast, running to Ahryn’s side would not improve her chances of getting out of this basement. It would not end this fight any sooner. No amount of killing or disabling the paladins running to surround the boy would stop the rest from trying to kill her.
But how long would the boy last if she left him to his own devices?
Could she live with his life on her conscience?
She couldn’t kill the captain. She couldn’t kill the demon. But she could save the boy.
She’d figure the rest out after.
Ahryn stumbled away from the men. Behind him was the containment circle holding the dragonlings. His gambeson was splattered with blood. More dripped from his neck.
Faint white light glowed from his gloved hands. He held them out at the paladins quickly surrounding him, visibly shaking all the while.
There were five of them, all as big and as well armored as any in the room. All well above the boy’s level.
Veldor Mage (lvl 25)
Copper Crescent Paladin (lvl 29) x2
Copper Crescent Paladin (lvl 30)
Copper Crescent Paladin (lvl 31)
Copper Crescent Paladin (lvl 33)
The lead paladin (level 33) stepped closer to Ahryn.
The boy pointed his palms at the man, a burst of white light shooting across the gap. The man raised his shield and the light dissipated harmlessly into nothing.
“That all you can do?” the man scoffed as he raised his sword.
Ahryn’s white light formed a barrier in front of him, thin and flickering.
Cass darted between them, her dagger drawn. Salos, take over!
Shifting Minds!
Our targets are rather far away, he grumbled even as he stabbed his dagger into the paladin in front of him. She didn’t need the hints flickering across their bond to know he meant the captain or the demon.
His blade skidded across the paladin’s armor, metal scraping against metal. Abyss, that’s hard.
If you can’t stab this one, do you think you can get through the captain’s armor? Cass pressed as she leapt from his shadows. Even for Salos, five was too many. She needed to limit the number of enemies who could attack them at once.
Stamina: 42/141
Focus: 168/549
Health: 71/134
She didn’t have a lot of resources left for this fight, just a third of her Stamina and a quarter of her total Focus. She needed to be sparing with it. Make every attack count.
It wasn’t enough for Confounding Mists, and even if there was, she didn’t know how her and Salos’s teamwork would fare in it.
That left Elemental Manipulation.
She darted into the center of the group of paladins, willing water to form and freeze beneath her feet. It spread around her, climbing up the legs of lvl-33 and the nearer lvl-29.
Focus: 145/549
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Lvl-33 scowled, his swing coming up short with his feet frozen to the floor. He swung again at the much closer Salos.
Salos stepped out of the way, his high Dexterity navigating the slick ice without difficulty and pushing Ahryn another step out of the ice field at the same time.
“Miss Mage Cass!” Ahryn’s eyes widened. His voice shook. But the glow of his barrier brightened. “You’re not dead!”
Shifting Mind.
Cass again stood between paladin and Ahryn, her dagger awkward in her hands. “What? Dead?”
Salos appeared on lvl-33’s shoulder, his claws slipping into a weak point and coming away with blood.
The other lvl-29 swung at Ahryn. He turned his shield toward the attack. The blade sank into the fragile barrier, slowing enough for the boy to scramble out of the blade’s path.
“I heard you were kidnapped.” Ahryn made a complicated gesture with one hand and pointed at the lvl-29 attacking him. Another white bolt of light shot from his hand into the paladin.
Again, it hit the paladin without appearing to do anything to the man.
He knew she’d been kidnapped? How? Who could possibly know that?
“Then, you came looking for me?” Cass threw a Tempest Blade at the lvl-29 chasing Ahryn, widening and blunting the profile of the blade. She didn’t hope to cut them with their Fortitude. But if she could knock his feet out from under him on the ice, that could give Ahryn another moment to get out of the way.
The invisible blade of wind struck the back of his knees.
She wasn’t expecting it to actually cut. Or the blood that gushed from the suddenly open wound.
The man stumbled over the ice, his weight suddenly unsupported and unbalanced on the injured leg.
“Oh, no. Emenie and Velkora were kidnapped, too.”
Lvl-29 caught himself with his sword, but Salos appeared on his shoulder, cat claws sinking through plate metal like it was tissue paper.
Was that paladin’s Fortitude just bad? That seemed unlikely, given his patron. That was too weak even for a normal amount of Fortitude.
What was different about this paladin?
Cass threw another Tempest Blade into his back, the vibrating blade of wind slicing deep through metal and cloth and flesh.
He crumpled, screaming in pain.
Focus: 139/549
Meanwhile, lvl-33 pulled his foot free of the ice. He stepped toward her, his feet crunching through the layer of ice, slow and methodical so as not to fall. Lvl-30 and lvl-31 had the same idea, walking with heavy steps through the ice.
All three advanced toward the boy.
Behind her, Salos dropped on the other lvl-29, his feet still frozen in place.
Cass darted between them and Ahryn, her dagger raised. She would not let them through. But there were three of them and only one of her. They split up, lvl-30 and lvl-31 turning in opposite directions, lvl-33 advancing directly on her.
33 swung at her, the ice under him crunching under his weight and the force coursing through his body.
Cass dodged back, gliding across the ice.
30 reached the edge of her ice field and sword range of Ahryn. That sword sliced through the air at the boy.
Ahryn put up another light barrier, slowing the swing and scrambling out of the way.
Not fast enough. 30’s sword clipped his shoulder, slicing right through his gambeson and adding to the blood.
The boy winced, biting back a scream.
Cass’s heart twisted. He was so young. Younger than Robin. He shouldn’t be in this kind of danger. He shouldn’t be so used to pain that he bit back screams like it was expected.
She slipped in front of him, her dagger raised and her heart hammering.
“You should get out of here,” Cass said. Out of the cathedral, at least. The paladins had bigger threats. If he were out of sight, they’d leave him alone, at least until the demon and dragon were contained, surely?
She’d said she could save him. And she would.
But protecting him was hard. Her skills were around keeping herself safe: hiding, running, dodging. She didn’t have any defensive skills that could protect others.
Lvl-31 caught up, swinging through. Cass raised her dagger to block but immediately realized that was stupid. She wasn’t strong enough to stop a level 31, physical fighter’s sword swing. Not with a weapon she barely knew how to use. Luckily, she didn’t need to.
Salos, switch.
Her surroundings twisted. She found herself on the shoulder of the lvl-29 she’d caught in her ice field. He was free and bleeding heavily across his face. His sword was on the floor beside him, abandoned for being too long to swing as close to his shoulders and neck as he’d need to hit her.
“I won’t leave Emenie,” Ahryn said.
“You are an idiot,” Salos muttered from her lips, their dagger twisting the paladin’s blade out of position. He darted forward, inside the paladin’s reach, stabbing the dagger into the man’s stomach.
The blade glanced across the plate metal instead.
Salos clicked his tongue.
Meanwhile, Cass slipped around the armored hand, a hiss slipping from her lips on instinct. Lvl-29 kept grabbing after her with empty, grasping hands.
She summoned lightning Tempest Blades to her claws as she scrambled over his body, willing the lightning to course through him. He convulsed beneath her.
Focus: 129/549
“I can help,” Ahryn insisted, still under attack. His hands flying in a series of arcane gestures.
Salos shoved him out of the way of lvl-30’s sword. “You’re in the way.”
“Am not!” Ahryn shot lvl-31 with another white bolt of magic. “Stab him again.”
Salos snorted but slipped under another sword swing again into the personal space of lvl-31. His dagger slammed into the metal plate, punching through like it was cardboard rather than metal.
Salos’s eyebrows went up. “Well, look at that.” He twisted the blade.
Your turn, Salos said, switch us back.
Again, their surroundings shifted as Shifting Minds swapped them back.
She was pressed against the paladin, her dagger buried up to its hilt in his chest. She could feel his breath, hot and humid on her neck as he exhaled in surprise.
She knew what Salos wanted her to do next.
She knew exactly how this should end.
Alacrity burned as her mind looked for any other answer. Any other way through. Any reason she could spare this man.
Atmospheric Sense warned her that lvl-30 was approaching on the other side. That lvl-33 was getting closer, too. That the demon was tearing through paladins on the other side of the room, ripping souls from bodies and devouring them on the spot. That the corpses at the dragon’s feet were only growing.
That if she wanted to leave this place alive, if she wanted to bring Ahryn out safely with her, she needed to do this.
Cass channeled astraum down the blade. It filled the cavity Salos had carved out.
Focus: 109/549
Ice formed on the man’s armor as the water in the air froze to his supernaturally cold body. His skin paled. His heart pounded beneath her dagger’s tip.
She forced her thoughts to something else. She could unpack this later. Now was for survival.
Now was for protecting what she could protect.