As chaos reigned through the battlefield Bjorn got a good look at one of the snatcher spiders that burst forth from his neighbor. It was smaller than the average sized snatcher spider. It was also hard to tell the color of the spider due to it being covered in all the blood and viscera of the corpse it just burst out of. What was obviously different though was the head of the spider. Coming out of the top of the spider were flesh like appendages that were 3 inches in length. The appendages wriggled on the top of its head as it attacked.
He only had enough time to take in the basic information on these new variants of the snatcher spiders before he had to defend himself. The smaller spider lunged at Bjorn tentacles writhing on the top of its head. Bjorn tried to create distance between himself and his new adversary as he attempted to retrieve his sword from his hip.
Luckily for him he didn’t have to use his sword as Alaric’s axe came streaking down slamming into the head of the spider killing it instantly. With a moment to disengage Bjorn began reading through the prompt and in the pit of his stomach anger and disgust grew. It didn’t take him long to understand the implications that these spiders had.
For who knows how long these spiders have been slowly infiltrating their camp, and their army. The deviousness of these fucking monsters make Bjorn sick to his stomach. Over the course of this entire campaign the soldiers in the army were slowly traded out for puppets controlled by spiders and no one was the wiser. Honestly if he wasn't a part of the army he would be impressed with their resourcefulness.
Regardless they needed to regroup. Bjorn did a quick survey of the battlefield and of the initial 1000 that were left there were now maybe 700 left standing. With the 200 that were actually spiders instead of fighters that means that roughly thirty percent of their remaining army was left. To make matters worse the way that the spiders were dispersed through the ranks as if to maximize the chaos their reveal would bring.
All sense of coordination and cooperation had gone out the window. Throughout the field of battle there were small pockets of fighters ranging from 3 to 7. Each one was trying desperately to survive as their now scattered ranks made it easier for the remaining spiders to pick off the small pockets. It was scary how fast the cohesion had crumbled on the field of battle.
Luckily for the group they were mostly together when the attack came. Another nice perk of their situation was the fact that Tommin’s unit had once again been stationed along the wall. This made it so that the 5 friends were able to quickly come together and form a protective circle. The next small grace was that they were on almost the exact opposite side from the battle between Gram, Duke Dornan, and the spider queen.
Not waiting for the next group to get overwhelmed they moved as a unit towards the closest group. It was filled with 5 fighters who were starting to wilt under the onslaught of the spiders. Even though the group was a few feet away from them by the time they were able to close the ground between the two groups one of the 5 had fallen to the attacks of the spiders.
A look of relief and gratitude that replaced one of fear and despair on the faces of the remaining 4. The now group of 9 were able to quickly kill off the spiders that attacked the group, two of them being the infiltrators. Once they had a brief respite the healthiest of the group looked at their saviors and simply said. “Thank you.”
Not even taking the time to acknowledge the thanks Alaric snapped at the man. “If you want to live, come with us.” After that terse command he turned towards the next closest group and took off towards them, not even looking back to see if the new 4 scared soldiers followed.
They looked to Rickie, but he was not even half a step behind Alaric as he was a flurry of deadly steel. They then looked at Bjorn. “You heard him.” Was all he said before he too joined the fray.
Alaric and Rickie were a force to be reckoned with. Alaric was a flurry of blows and blocking. It made perfect sense why he got the knight profession. His shield was exactly where it needed to be when he needed it to be there. He was able to save countless lives countless times with his skill. What he wasn’t able to block with his shield he was able to stop with his heavily armored body.
Rickie on the other hand was the exact opposite with his fighting style. His low amount of armor made him an easy target to get wounded, but he didn’t even care. Over and over he got bit by the snatcher spiders, or clawed at with their shape front claws. But his immunity to the venom and his ability to shrug off wounds that would incapacitate a normal man could not be matched on this field of battle. He wasn’t as tanky as Alaric was, but he traded that off for damage. His heavy two handed sword was more of a long heavy club than it was a sword. By this time in the fight the dull edge he had honed it to before the battle was now barely an edge at all. It was constantly worn away by the thick heavy carapace the spiders were made of. Oddly enough this actually made him more deadly on the field of battle than it made him less effective.
The two of them carved through the field of spiders like a rock splits the river. The one who was the most surprising was actually Tayla. The professed rogue had struggled versus the spiders almost the entire time they were forced down here to fight. Tayla did find very quickly that her daggers were able to easily pierce the eyes of the spiders, spilling their thick optical fluid over her daggers. Over the course of the last few weeks she also learned that if she stabbed either of the middle eyes on the top row of the spider's eyes she was able to sink the dagger deep and almost instantly kill it. If it didn’t kill the spider instantly it did significant damage to the point where it would die in a few seconds.
What was a surprise in this battle was that Tayla quickly found out that the fleshy tentacles that wriggled on the head of the snatcher spider infiltrators was actually a weak spot. The infiltrators had a significantly larger brain than the more standard version of the spiders. This made it much easier to hit the more vital spot on the spiders to get the kill. To further make these spiders easier to kill was that the flesh part actually had no carapace on it, and it was directly connected to the brain. A fact that she was gladly taking advantage of.
She had a manic grin crossed her face as she wasn’t able to contain glee of finally being able to do something. Weeks of frustration at her inability to contribute significantly to the battle effort came pouring out of her, and the outlet were the spiders.
Of course no one would ever discount the usefulness of Meira, although she was less useful than she had been at the beginning of the battle. She had blown through the majority of her mana over the several hours that they had been fighting. That, and that she had already drank her mana potion for the day. Even though things were dire, they weren’t bad enough to where she feared her life. So instead of potentially crippling herself for the rest of her life she decided to hold back on as many spellcasting as she normally did.
One of the reasons that she had been singled out in her village to learn how to cast magic was because of her abilities. In particular one of them. It was called: One with the earth. And it had the benefit for her mana regeneration to be increased by 100%. This obviously made her able to cast at least double the amount of spells as any other mage. Her mana regeneration was further enhanced by the epic rarity gift that Bjorn and Alaric had used on her. The bottled mentality. I gave a whopping 100% additional mana regeneration as well as increasing her intelligence and wisdom.
To further the insanity that was her spellcasting ability she spent some of her few precious talent points to buy a talent called: Decreased mana cost 1. Which decreased the cost of each spell she cast by 5%, making her spellcasting further insane.
With all of that mana regeneration she was regenerating roughly 1 point of mana per second. Making it so that with the regeneration and decreased spell cost she was able to put out spells faster than anyone Bjorn had ever seen. It made her a small one woman army as she continued to cast her spells time and time again. Even though it was slower than her maximum output of spells she was still casting faster than should be possible. And each time she cast a spell the course of their battle changed.
The last, but certainly not least, was Bjorn. Even though he was without a doubt the weakest fighter in their group he was not useless. He had become the de facto leader of their small group. With every person that their group saved he was put in charge of organizing them and getting them any healing they needed or even just small orders. Due to the fact that each soldier was saved by their small group they without hesitation followed orders. With each person that joined they became more and more of an organized and powerful force that was able to fight back.
When the spiders surprise ambush happened Bjorn got a message that saddened him, but it didn’t stop him.
Due to the death of your war leader, and with no one else in the war party with the war leader skill. The war party has been disbanded. You have lost your role as war band scout.
Bjorn wasn’t entirely sure what happened but it was fairly obvious that Tommin had been killed by the sneak attack. With their commander dead the rest of their unit was thrown into chaos. Luckily for the friends they never really depended on the military order of their unit. They were useful in battle on their own. By the time they had managed to save those still alive in their unit the number had dropped from 68 alive down to 31. In a manner of minutes over half of their remaining force had dropped dead under the horde of spiders.
Not stopping with just their unit the group moved on to try and save more humanoids and coordinate a defense against the spiders with their shattered ranks. While Bjorn was coordinating he still used his bow to shoot at any spider that caught his eye. He never once stopped with the constant barrage. While he was doing all of that he found a small rock and mounted it to get a better vantage on how the fight was going.
Throughout the battlefield there were small pockets of humanoids that seemed to have collected and were trying to do the same thing that Bjorn and his allies were trying to do. Some with more success than others. By his best guess there was one group that had probably around 250 soldiers in it. There seemed to be 3 separate large bubbles of humanoids that were surrounded by spiders. Even though they were surrounded by spiders the tide of spiders seemed to have slowed. Making it easier to collect themselves and regroup.
Bjorn’s eyes strayed to where Gram, Dornan and the spider queen were fighting and he understood why the number of spiders attacking them had decreased. By the looks of it Gram’s personal unit had been the only part of the army that hadn’t been infected by snatcher spider infiltrators. As soon as the ranks had crumbled they created a small ball of defenders and were holding their own. Their unit had Duke Dornan within it and were giving everything they could to try and keep him alive. Gram was on the edge of the ball of humanoids and was doing his best to hold the spider queen at bay.
The reason for their decreased opponents was because the spider queen was trying to flood Gram’s unit and take out Duke Dornan. There was a large writhing mass of spiders all vining to get closer and attack the elite unit.
From where he stood he could see that the fight was a losing battle. It was only a matter of time before Gram’s professed fighters lost and then it would be game over for the army. Their only saving grace was that it looked like the spiders had finally run out of reinforcements as well. The never ending tide that streamed from the spider's nest and finally stopped. It would be hard but the end was finally in sight.
Bjorn jumped down from his perch. “Alright, we need to move in that direction.” Bjorn pointed with his bow towards where he saw the largest pocket of humanoids. “They are hitting Gram hard right now, and I don’t see how he can win. There is a large group of our men who have regrouped over there. We need to get to them.”
Without a moment of hesitation one of their saved men saluted and yelled. “Yes sir!”
As one a war cry escaped the throats of the 50 some odd men and women that surrounded Bjorn as they started to move forward in a ball of flesh, hitting everything that moved and wasn’t a humanoid. It was slow and bloody but they made their way towards the mass of the army.
As they moved their numbers constantly fluctuated. They would lose two of three of their ranks, but then they would come across a group of bedraggled fighters. By this time Meira had stopped casting offensively and would cast purely to try and heal up the humanoids. She would do what she could to get them back into fighting shape and they would move on. Slowly but steadily their numbers grew. And soon their numbers swelled to around 70.
The only issue was that almost every person they gained had some sort of wound that Meira couldn’t fix. For how wondrous her magical healing powers were she didn’t have a way to reverse the effects of the snatcher spider venom. So for every person who had some sort of fighting capability left they also gained one who wouldn’t be useful at all in a fight. So as their numbers grew, the number of those who could fight shrunk.
Eventually they pushed their way through and to the ball of humanoids. Their two forces quickly smashed all of the spiders that were in between the two groups and their smaller group got absorbed into the larger force. The scene of the two groups joining looked like two cells merging.
Once they were safely inside one of the soldiers told them to take their wounded to the healer and for the rest to join. Everyone quickly dispersed. Going whichever way made the most sense. Those who could walk under their power went towards where the soldier pointed, if they could they would help those who couldn’t. Those still able to fight joined the defensive wall and gave those who needed it a break. Meira went with the hurt, while Bjorn made his way to a raised rock where three people stood.
As he approached two of them gave him a grim look, while the last one had a resolute look on her face. “You were the one who got those fighters to us. Thank you, but I think we are playing with fate. We won’t last too much longer. We need to retreat.”
Bjorn wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he got to the raised rock but he grew angry. He quickly stocked over to the rock and mounted it. The woman who had spoken stood there meeting Bjorn’s eyes and he walked up to her and started to tower over her.
“That is no good.” Bjorn pointed to where Gram’s unit was still holding but losing ground. The circle had shrunk by a third of its size when Bjorn saw it last. “Without Captain Gram, or Duke Dornan, we have no shot at winning a fight. We have lost too many of our brothers and sisters here to back down. They are losing, but we are holding. We need to take a gamble and make it to them. If we can help them there is still hope for today.”
“How dare you talk to-” One of the men started to say as he walked towards Bjorn. But he was cut short by the woman’s raised hand.
“I understand. What do you suggest? We don’t have many options.”
“I don’t care how many lives are lost here. If we lose gram and his unit this entire city will be lost. I don’t personally care all that much about Blackrock Bay. But if we lose this fight then we will have to evacuate Blackrock Bay. Or else everyone in the city will be killed. We need to get up and make our move to support Gram, he would do the same for any one of us.”
By this point the two people who had been standing next to the woman kept looking back and forth between her and Bjorn, waiting for her orders. Whoever she was, she seemed to be important in some way.
After a moment she nodded. “Very well. You are right of course, we need to do something.” She paused and looked over to where Gram’s forces were completely surrounded and still holding their own. “Just know that you are responsible for each and everyone who is lost during this attack.”
“I know, sometimes you have to make the hard decisions, even if you don’t want to. Give the order.”
She closed her eyes and held her breath for a few seconds. She took a deep breath and nodded once again. When she opened her eyes her expression changed. She had gone from a look of hopelessness, to a resolute one. Her voice also changed. Before her voice was thick with barely contained panic and grief, now it was a lifeless and cold voice.
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“Sergeant. Give the order. We need to get to Gram. We leave in a minute. Make sure that everyone is in position and ready to go.”
In the meantime. As soon as their unit started to split up Meira went with the injured over to where the only healer was. When they got there the small area was filled with wounded who couldn’t fight. Their wounds ranged from a missing bone due to venom to a full on torn off limb. Almost everyone that was in the small 20 foot by 30 foot area was unable to fight for one reason or another.
Among the wounded soldiers Meira spotted a familiar figure kneeling with his back towards her. He was leaning over the limp leg of an elf woman wrapped in light leather armor. He was using two short swords on either side of her leg as splits as he tied them together. The only benefit to the situation at hand was that there were plenty of weapons scattered across the field of battle that could be picked up and used for whatever use was needed.
“Jantis.” Meira called out.
Upon hearing her voice the mage looked up and saw her approaching. Fortunately for her he was the second most skilled healing mage that the army had. If he was around then the likelihood of these soldiers making a recovery was significantly higher. That is of course if he had the mana necessary to do the healing.
“Ah Meira, I am glad you were the one to make it. Are you here to help?” A painful smile crossed his lips. “Not that you'll be able to do anything. You are a wonderful healer and are quite impressive for how long you have been healing, but I am afraid that most of this healing is beyond you.”
Meira squatted down next to the healer and started helping him with his work. “Isn’t there something you can do?”
He shook his head. “I have already done what I can. I am plumb out of mana. I don’t even have enough for a weak slow heal. There isn’t anything more magical I can do.”
“What about a mana potion? I still have 2 left.”
He didn’t respond to her question, which was unusual for him. This made Meira take a good long look at him. The man’s face was one of anguish.
He took a shaky breath. “I have already taken my two.” He stated plainly.
“Two? Did you?” Meira started to ask. The look on his face said it all. He did not successfully pass, and his mana was permanently decreased by 10% “I am so sorry. But we can’t give up hope. I do still have two potions. We can each take one.”
Jantis reached up and brushed tears away from his eyes. “We can. But what good does that do us? I might be crippled even further, and you can’t spend your mana in a meaningful way to heal. It would be better if I took them both.” When he finished speaking he reached out a shaking hand.
Meira hesitated for a second, looking at the man’s unsteady palm. After a moment of deliberation she reached into her belt and pulled out one of her two mana potions. She used her free hand to stabilize Jantis’s hand, she placed the potion into his hand with her other.
“I will only give you one of these potions. I have access to more than just healing magic, I am a decent offensive mage as well. I will keep one just in case I need to cast my other magics.”
He nodded his head and pulled the vial back towards him. He tried several times to uncork the vial and each time he failed. Both of his hands shook so badly that he wasn’t able to get a good grip on the cork at the end of the vial.
Gently Meira reached out and grabbed ahold of his unsteady hands and stabilized the one holding the vial. Using her other hand she gently took the cork out of the end of the vial and started to move the vial towards his lips. The vivid blue liquid spilled out of the vial and into his mouth. After he closed his mouth it was a few seconds before his adam's apple bobbed and the liquid slid down his throat.
As soon as it did his shoulders slumped once again. “Another failure. I am now permanently reduced by 20%.” He knelt there tears now streaming down his face. He drew in one shaky breath. “What is done is done. Let’s get to work.”
Together the two mages started to work their way through the wounded. Meira would do everything she could to help Jantis. With his guiding hand they worked to minimize how much mana it would cost to repair each injury. Some would take multiple spells to fully repair the wound. That was where his years and years of training as a healer paid off. His knowledge allowed them to save a spell casting here and there, reducing the total cost, making it so they could heal more.
Magical healing was amazing but it wasn’t the end all be all. Usually after intensive magical healing the patient would need to rest to allow the body to recover. Which was a property of magical healing. It drew upon the body placing strain on it to heal it. Normally if they rested for a period after being healed the patient would be able to fully recover.
In this instance they didn’t have a choice. Each time after Jantis and Meira were done healing someone they had to get up and return to the field of battle. It wasn’t a question of should they, it was a matter of have to. As it stood their chances of survival were slim to none. So they did their best to return the soldiers to a semi healed state so they could go back to battle.
After the minute had elapsed the small ball of humanoids surged forward heading in the direction of Gram and his failing unit. As they traveled they picked up small heavily wounded groups of humanoids. At first their movement forward was easy, as the number of spiders around the group was initially small, but as they drew closer to where the real battle was taking place the number grew. The denser the spiders grew the harder it became to push forward. Soon they were losing members of their group. As they drew nearer that number grew. At first it was one or two every once and a while. Rather quickly the number jumped to one or two ever hundred feet.
There was one small grace that came out of their progress forward. They eventually picked up a gnome that had an odd ability. How they found out about the ability was by pure happenstance.
When the gnome got enveloped into the group she was heavily wounded so she got moved to the mobile healing area that was set up in the middle of the small combat area. While there she got worked on by Meira and Jantis while they were on the move. Luckily she mainly had serious gashes on her body, so while Meira spent some of her mana fixing the wound she made a comment.
“You know it truly is a shame that I can’t give my mana to you. I have some insane mana regeneration and it isn’t as important for me to have it as it would be for you to have it.” She made the offhand comment towards Jantis who was busy trying to reset an arm where it had been snapped in half by a heavy blow from one of the snatcher spider warriors. Which was hard to do while they had to move while trying to fix the issue.
The gnome heard what Meira said and in a quiet voice said. “I should be able to help with that. I have an Ability which I haven’t found much use for over the years. It is called equilibrium. It’s effect is that I can balance out the mana pool between two people that I touch.”
She said it in a voice so quiet that Meira barely could hear her, but she did. “Jantis, come over here!” She called out excitedly.
The excitement in her voice was evident, it was out of place on the battlefield they found themselves on. Curious he left the man with the half set arm and walked over to Meira and the gnome woman. “What? He asked in an irritated tone.”
Instead of answering him she looked down on the gnome. “Please use that ability on the two of us.” She said in a warm tone with barely contained excitement.
The gnome woman reached out and grabbed ahold of both of their legs right below the kneecap. When she came in contact with both Meira and Jantis, mana began to pour out of Meira. The flow of mana was so intense she was able to physically see it flow out of her body and into the gnome's body. It didn’t stop there though, it flowed through the gnome's body and then out of her arm. From there it flowed into Jantis’s body. The sight of the mana flow turned the upper body of the gnome a vibrant blue as the mana flowed out of Meira and into Jantis.
In a matter of seconds over a hundred mana flowed out of Meira and into Jantis. When they started the transfer she was nearly half full on her mana. It took literal seconds for the mana to be forcibly drained out of her body. The flow continued until she was around 30% full on mana. The oddest thing to her was the fact that the mana was forcibly drained, she had absolutely no say on if that mana could be drained or not.
At the start of the mana flow she had been at 437 mana out of her normal 910 mana. It took less than 2 seconds and her new mana pool was at an even 300. In less time than it took her to ask a simple question 137 mana had been transferred out of her body and into Jantis’s body.
As the mana flowed his eyes grew wide at the sheer volume. He turned and looked at Meira, respect in his eyes. “How big is your mana pool?”
Meira was about to answer when she stopped herself and looked down at the gnome. “How often can you do this and how does it work exactly?”
“I can do this as often as I like, as far as I know. And it equalizes the mana pools between the two entities by percentages.”
Meira did some quick mental math and looked at Jantis. “That means that your maximum mana is 440. Mine is at 910.” A smile crossed her face. “First I think you should heal up this gnome and we can start using my mana pool as your mana pool.”
A pained look crossed the man’s face when Meira said his mana pool was 440. Before the start of this battle his mana pool was 550. Jantis nodded and started working on the gnome, bringing her back up to a state where she was able to move freely without pain crippling her. All the while she was transferring mana from Meira to Jantis. As they worked Jantis spoke. “How is your mana pool so high? I have spent almost every single free point I have gotten into my intelligence and my pool is still half the size of yours.”
“I have had a few lucky experiences. One of which was an epic ranked item known as bottled mentality. That is actually where the lions share on my mana came from. That and I am level 23.”
“Ah that makes sense. I have never heard of ‘bottled mentality’ but it must have been a wondrous item to affect you so much.” Jantis commented without little expectation on a response.
Once the gnome was able to move again the trio began moving through the wounded rapidly as Jantis had access to an elevated mana pool that he normally wouldn’t have access to. He began casting healing magic without reservations. When they exhausted Meira’s mana pool once again they switched their tactics, and began forcibly taking mana from the wounded to heal them.
Although the gnome was a godsend when they needed it most, the trio could only do so much. Instead of solving the slow trickle of wounded they just slowed up the flood that started to come to them.
As they neared Gram’s forcing their circle began to shrink just as Gram’s was shrinking. It shrunk in size because of two reasons. The first was obviously the wounded. The second was the dead. By the time they had crossed most of the distance between Gram’s forcing and their few hundred they had lost nearly a hundred. Their circle was only half as wide as it had been when they first started to move.
Not to be stopped though everyone met their fate with certainty. Not once during their assault did one of the soldiers resolve waiver. Everyone was fighting for their home at this point and no one was going to give up. So they pushed on. They fought with reckless abandon.
Unflaggingly they pushed forward step by step though. But with each step the field of spiders just grew denser. Even though they were leaving hundreds of spider corpses in their wake the numbers just kept on growing. It grew and grew, until suddenly it stopped.
They had managed to fight their way to gram’s unit of professed fighters. They had done it! They had made it to Gram.
Quickly orders were bellowed over the field from Bjorn’s group and the group began to merge with Gram’s unit. First thing they did was open up the two groups and move the wounded and more important commanders into the shelter of the professed fighters. As that was happening the fighters of Bjorn’s group began to filter into Gram’s unit and fill in the spaces.
As one circle shrunk the other grew. Gram’s unit had created a perimeter that they didn’t want to give up. As they fought they slowly backed up, it wasn’t intentional. It was the natural movement of the army when one of its fighters fell. When one of the professed fighters died the others on either side of them would fill in and take their place. They could only protect so much of an area and so to fill in that area and not leave any gaps the two would take a step back so they still didn’t leave any holes. This scenario played out over and over as the group shrunk.
Now, with their numbers bolstered they were able to reclaim what was once lost, and they began to push back the spiders once again. Even though their retreat had been slow, their reclaiming of that ground was anything but that. As their numbers swelled they rapidly reclaimed the ground once lost, and pushed back the spider's forces.
While the majority was regaining ground around the circle. The way that they had come from was losing ground. The enraged spiders redoubled their attacks on that side of the bubble. But fortunately for their group they didn’t need to hold that line. They were slowly getting absorbed into the Gram’s unit, so they kept giving up ground until the line had stabilized once again, with Gram’s elite warriors interspersed with the new fighters.
One thing that was a boon of their lost ground, the spiders had removed the corpses of the fallen as they went. So when they pushed back out the ground was nice and clear. The only issue was now they were having to deal with the dead. 20 of their number were assigned with piling up the dead as quickly as they could. As the army stepped over the spider's corpses they would run back and forth making small piles of the dead. Making it easier for their army to give ground once again if they needed to.
Now that their groups had been turned into one the professed fighters no longer had to fight to the death. Whenever one got wounded to where previously they would have been overwhelmed and killed, they no longer had to do that. With their bolstered numbers they could retreat to where Meira and Jantis were working tirelessly and get healed back up.
Each time one of the professed fighters made their way to where Meira and Jantis were working, they would stop what they were doing and heal the professed fighter. It was cruel, but it was necessary, as the professed fighter could do more, and was more useful in a fight than the rest of the wounded. When they prioritized the professed fighters no one complained. Everyone knew what kind of situation they were in, and no one had any delusions on their abilities. The fierce fighting, and the surprise attack from the spiders put the end to anyone who was delusional about their fighting abilities.
Together they had found a balance, they were no longer pushed outward, and neither were they losing ground. Meira and Jantis were able to do just enough for the group to not lose ground. As long as the two of them didn’t falter neither would the army itself.
Which now only left one thing, and that was the fight between Gram, Dornan, and the spider queen. As it stood, whoever won that battle would decide the fate of the rest of the battle.
It had been a mostly even fight between the professed fighter and mage, and the spider queen. It was even, but that didn’t mean nothing was happening. Over the course of the battle both sides had taken wounds. Dornan looked haggard as he kept casting spell after spell at the spider. Each spell helped slow down the spider, but he hadn’t been able to make any truly meaningful damage against the spider. He was an earth mage which made him better able to deal damage to the spider queen. He had landed a few good hits onto it, but nothing conclusive. For the most part his spells helped Gram not be overwhelmed by the larger, heavier, and ultimately stronger spider queen.
Gram on the other hand looked to be on death's door. His body was completely covered with cuts, gashes, and holes where the spider queen had managed to get a bite onto him. Fortunately for everyone present the spider queen lacked the same potent venom that the smaller spiders did. If it had the battle would have been a forgone conclusion, all it had to do was inject him once and their fight would be done for. Gram himself, though, fought on completely ignoring his bodily state. His left arm hung limply at his side, completely useless. He fought on in spite of it. His wounds also were covered with a thin sheet of ice. His entire body was.
As it turned out the spider queen had access to some sort of innate water magic. But the spells it seemed to be able to cast had a clear ice base to them. Ice rays, ice spikes, and large ice based AoE spells flew out of the spider's body on top of it when it attacked Gram.
Even though the spider had dealt out the damage to Gram it also took a beating. Of its 8 legs two had been severed completely. The last one was dragging behind it limply just the exact same way that Gram’s arm was hanging uselessly. Its thick carapace had many different areas where there were thick cracks that ran along the exo-skeleton, and thick droplets of the spider's blood poured out of the monster and splattered onto the ground. There were also several gouges that had been dug out of the thick carapace leaving exposed flesh underneath the wound, where the blood seeped out of the wound.
The intense battle had managed to create a small pocket for itself. The battle was balanced between the ground that the humanoids occupied and the spider controlled land. Each side gave the fighting titans a wide berth, and neither side wanted to be crushed underfoot. Allowing them to fight unhindered by either other humanoids or other spiders. Making it a true 2 on 1 fight.
The balance remained temporarily, but not for long, as Duke Dornan was running out of mana. In desperation he asked one of the nearby soldiers to find out if anyone had any mana potions left over. As Duke Dornan had already drunk his one potion. It was an epic level mana potion that he had been hoarding for years for an occasion such as this. It restored 13 thousand mana over the course of 5 minutes. Which was more than enough to fill his mana pool twice over. He had made the best use of that potion and almost used every bit of mana that was contained in the potion.
The soldier quickly returned with Meira and the gnome in tow. “Here give me the mana potion.” Duke Dornan commanded.
Meira shook her head. “This gnome can balance out the mana between two people, let me drink the potion and she can give it to you.”
The duke looked at her briefly before he turned back to the fight between the two. “As soon as I start casting, drink the potion and start feeding me mana.” not waiting for a response he began to cast a spell he hadn’t cast in a long time. Thick strands of green energy began to peel off of Dornan as he started to cast his spell. His remaining mana began to plummet.
Following directions Meira drank her mana potion and stepped towards the duke, the gnome following right behind her.
You have drank a mana potion while your mana matrix was in flux from another mana potion. The rampant energies of the mana potion have irreparably damaged your mana matrix. Your maximum mana pool is decreased by 10%.
As the mana from the mana potion began to fill her pool the mana began to flow out of her and into the duke. As it did so the mana then flowed out of him and into his spell. At first it looked like his spell was not having any effect. As the mana flowed into the spell that changed. High above their heads the stone began to ripple as it somehow turned into a fluid state and began to flow into the shape of a giant stone spike. As mana began to flow into the spell the size of the spike grew as well.
What was truly impressive was that the spike flowed and moved as if it was a droplet of water. It flowed across the ceiling of the cavern trying to remain above the spider queen, who was blissfully unaware of what was growing over its head.
Quickly both Dornan’s and Meira’s mana pool drained to where there was nothing left. But they held on, both Meira ignoring her pounding headache, and dornan holding the channel open so he could continue to feed the mana that Meira gave him into the spell. At first the mana flowed into it as over a thousand mana poured into the spell in just a few seconds, rapidly forming. When the mana slowed down it continued to form, just not quiet as rapidly. The channeled spell greedily drank in as much mana as it was able to be offered by the two mages.
When the mana potion finally ran out Meira collapsed unconscious as her brain fled from the pain the natural world contained. Dornan finished channeling the spell and let the mana go. He sounded out as loudly as he could. “Gram, hold it.” before he too passed out.
Gram understood what he had to do. He had to make sure it didn’t move. Dropping his weapon Gram activated one of his talents, bull rush. As he did so he turned his left arm towards the spider and charged at it, shoulder first.
The spider saw the charging man and raised its head to meet the attack. It straightened out its fangs and Gram rammed himself onto the fangs of the spider. Once the fangs were embedded in his flesh it curled its fangs holding him steadfast. It then tried to pull him in closer so it could get ahold of Gram with its spinnerets on its butt.
Gram’s unwavering certainty in Duke Dornan paid for itself several times over that day. Once he was impaled on the spider's fangs he activated another talent of his. Bulls stubbornness. Which rooted him in place and made him unable to be moved for 5 seconds.
When the spider tried to bring Gram in closer to itself, it failed to do so. It strained and strained to pull him to it but it didn’t succeed. Just when it was about to change tactics and bring itself to him the spike slammed into its back.
