(6.1) Winter's Ability

Pain arcs through Aki's body. A throbbing sensation from her left arm makes her recoil. Carefully, she rolls onto her side and inspects herself for damage.

Her cloak is dusty and covered in fragments of the brick wall she and the others busted through. Underneath, her clothing is dirty but undamaged, but she can't see any significant injuries save for a large, dark bump on her forearm.

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Aki  Title: Witch

LE: 34/55  HP: 125/200

MP: 70/250

SP: 48/50

[Adjusted to Darkness: 10% increase in vision when in dim light or pure dark]

[Fractured Bone: attributed 50% Weakness & Numbness 000]

[Waning Life: All stats reduced until LE restored]

More: ⟲

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Aki groans. She'd been trying to avoid looking at her status, but she had instinctively once she saw her swollen arm. She struggles to her feet and looks around the small chamber they crashed inside.

Mirra and Phoebe seemed altogether fine, putting aside their dusty clothes and a few scratches. Winter was already looking around the chamber, picking through the rubble. His summon, Ogre, was nowhere to be seen.

In the middle of the chamber are two very thin, dark pillars that occasionally shake in place, releasing a thin curtain of dust that they had sent into the air after crashing through the wall.

Still, among the rubble, the broken bones and crushed bodies of skeletons and zombies could be seen. For a fortunate reason, they'd at least established a temporary safe zone. At least safe enough to prepare themselves to push on.

Taking advantage of the safety, Winter tries to revive any of the defeated skeletons and corpses to place under his servitude to no avail.

"Anyone need a mana recharge?" Phoebe holds up several vials of a teal liquid. "I've only got a few left, but I figured I shouldn't be stingy right now if we wanna get out alive."

"Guess I won't have to worry about fixing my arm now," Aki steps over the rubble and takes one from Phoebe. She quickly downs half of it and feels most of her mana return.

Bracing herself, Aki grabs her damaged arm and prepares to adjust it.

"Minor Heal."

The sound of bones snapping makes her allies jump, ready for a surprise fight.

"Ah, sorry, sorry!" Aki sticks her partially healed arm out of her cloak.

The swelling has largely reduced, but a seriously angry-looking bruise mark still denotes the damage. "I kinda broke my arm in the fall. I was just healing it."

"My stars, Aki. Was it not hurting ya?" Mirra stares, mouth agape.

Phoebe and Winter share similar sentiments with their words and expressions. Aki waves them off, showing her allies she's fine by drinking the rest of the MP potion and replacing the stopper with the bruised arm.

"It's numb, so it's fine. But if you guys need healing, tell me so I can heal you. Otherwise, we should keep going."

Judging by their position from where they landed, Ogre had managed to aim above their target and brought them closer to the top of the tower than anticipated.

Still, they had a ways to go, with no telling how much stood in their way and the sands of time falling faster to nightfall. With no more time to waste, the four begin their ascent.

Most of the chambers they pass through are filled with skeleton soldiers and the occasional armoured corpse. Some among their number look quite dangerous and would have likely been a strenuous fight, but Mirra is a force to be reckoned with.

Rather than stopping to clear each and every room, the four of them blast through the crowds with Mirra at the front, running from door to door, hall to hall, and ascending the tower with as little combat as possible. After all, the real fight would be at the top. They couldn't needlessly exhaust themselves beforehand.

Crash!

Mirra punched through the heavy stone double doors preventing their progress. She had opened up to a wide, dimly lit chamber that spanned the entirety of the tower. On the far side of the chamber is a sturdy-looking ladder reclined at a wide angle against the wall.

"This is probably the last room!" Aki fires an arc of acid-green energy at the horde of Dead, trying to push after them. "Phoebe, you can do it now. Break the ground underneath them!"

"Roger!" Phoebe slams her staff down at the base of their staircase. The tower shakes, and the stone floor trembles.

Seconds later, the centre of the floor breaks away, causing the Dead to fall into the rooms below. The damage isn't much, but now there's no way up without somehow scaling a storey up the smooth walls.

"Alright, let's go," Winter runs into the room first. He makes a beeline for the ladder when suddenly, the dim light darkens in a spot above him.

"Look out!" Mirra barely manages to grab Winter and roll out of the way of a massive creature.

Roughly five metres in height, the monster has a large, humanoid upper body and a furry arachnid-like lower body. Its face is long and hideous, with terrifying chelicerae and boney mandibles resembling downward-facing tusks.

The monster raises its arms and swipes a trio of elongated claws to try and grab Mirra and Winter.

Phoebe blasts the monster with sharpened stones, but the most her attack does is pop the bulbous white sacks attached to the hairless sections of its blue skin. Enraged, the monster tries to crush Phoebe with its hooved legs, causing the chamber to shake and the ladder to slide a little.

"We're just so lucky, aren't we!" Aki throws punch after punch at the monster, launching illusory fire from her amulet.

Her attempts were amicable, but the multi-eyed monster isn't fooled by the illusion and begins to attack Aki. Swiping its claws, stomping its hooves, and regurgitating a foul liquid that melts the magic shield Aki raised at the last second.

"You two go on ahead," Mirra shouts after somehow kicking the monster in the face so hard it staggers into the wall.

She lands in front of Aki. Phoebe runs to join her friend while Winter runs to grab Aki's hand. He pulls her away from the two adventurers, hurriedly going for the ladder.

"A Spider Fiend is a raid boss, and you aren't ready to fight something like this yet," Mirra gives the two a salute before turning to face the monster. "Phoebe and I'll take care of this, so make sure you take out that spell source for us, will ya? And make sure to treat us when we get back!"

"Call the platoon. Get them to the tower!" Aki shouts back at them as she sprints after Winter.

The spider fiend notices Aki and Winter climbing the ladder and redirects its aggression toward the two kids. It lunges, propelling its body with speed unexpected for its large frame.

A stonework barrier rises between the monster and the two kids. A resounding crunch sounds from the impact, and the section it crashed into collapses, but the magically raised stones remain standing.

"We'll catch up!" Phoebe shouts from the other side. Her voice is drowned by the shrill roar of the fiend.

Winter pauses at the trapdoor. "I'm feeling some really strong summons on the other side. Four, at the least."

"Magic Sense is just gonna tip them off if they're strong enough!" Aki quietly scolds.

"I didn't use Magic Sense. Since I'm a necromancer like my dad, I can detect any Dead around me and if they're under someone else's control." Winter notices Aki's quizzical look. "Ah, it's just a perk. Like a class ability, y'know? I know it sounds weird but fire your witchbolt dead ahead as soon as you're up. Trust me."

He goes to push the trapdoor open, but Aki grabs his shoulder.

"I know you're an otherworlder. You're way too obvious about it." Aki shakes her head but quickly offers a reassuring look when she notices Winter take as defensive of a stance as he can on the ladder. "Wait, wait. Listen, if you're holding anything back to blend in, don't. We'll need all the overwhelming otherworlder power to get through this."

Winter nods, the expression on his face shows that he's quickly processing the information. He pushes the trapdoor open and jumps into the fray. Aki launches after him, raising her amulet and firing an acid-green bolt as instructed.

Immediately, a fully armoured, four-armed standard-bearing knight is knocked over by the attack. The standard flies out of its grasp and over the tower's edge, though no such luck comes for the standard-bearer.

Just as Winter said, aside from the knight, there are three misty grey entities floating menacingly on the far side.

The roof is bare of any sort of defences or hiding spots. Only a large, circular dias spanning out from the centre could possibly serve as a defensive spot, but it would require laying flat on the ground.

Even so, floating several metres off the dais is a massive ball of pulsating energy. In the middle of it, Aki sees an odd cube rapidly spinning in place and periodically halting to suddenly appear larger or smaller than before.

The energy glows white around the edges but is a deep black on the inside, only blending into a pale gold when around the cube.

Across the tower, Winter is locked in battle with the three cackling apparitions circling him. They're Shades, Aki realises. While not particularly dangerous alone, if they aren't all destroyed quickly, they'll keep restoring themselves alongside a troublesome power boost.

"Those things can revive each other, Winter! You gotta take them out fast!" Aki starts to run to his side and narrowly avoids a spear thrust where her head was a second ago.

Holding twin broadswords, a spear and a shield, the Dead Knight blocks Aki's path. A chittering clack serving as a warning comes from her foe. It lowers its head and charges.

"Title switch!" Aki throws her cloak at the incoming knight.

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[MP: 250 -> 200]

[Agility: +1]

[Speed: +1]

[Mobility increased by 80%. Clothing reduces actions by 10% each.]

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The bump in her stats is barely enough to compensate for the Waning Life debuff, but the added mobility makes up for it in this situation. Aki practically flies over the knight's attacks with ease. She grabs her cloak in midair before landing on the knight's helm. Using its head as a baseboard, she jumps to Winter's side.

"Spectral Bind!"

Glowing chains capture two of the three Shades and crush them into the ground. They dissipate in a puff of grey smoke, much to Aki's dismay. Shades are weak, but not so weak a binding spell could destroy them like that.

The remaining Shade screams, the horrifying resonance of its voice sending a paralysing chill down Aki's spine. The scream restores the destroyed two, looking more horrifying than before.

"Winter, you're the necromancer! Shouldn't destroying the spell source beat these guys too? Do something about it!" Aki says urgently.

"I'm not sure, but we gotta destroy it regardless of its effects if we wanna break the mass necromancy. Keep them off me for thirty, no twenty seconds." Winter responds from behind Aki.

"He was one of those, huh?" Aki fires a bolt at the knight that joins the strengthened trio of Shades and proceeds to launch chain after chain. If they get destroyed that easily, she should at least try to get them all at once.

She kites the four around the roof, fiercely trying to destroy them. No matter what she did, one Shade kept slipping just out of reach.

Meanwhile, the knight looked completely fine. The spells were hitting perfectly, staggering the knight with each hit, but none of them was dealing any significant damage.

"The knight's armour is resistant to pact magic." Aki scans the tower roof.

There's too much miasma to try water magic, illusion magic won't work without working physical senses, it's too dangerous to get in close and use pure mana, and the rest of her spells are support or daily life types.

Aki ducks beneath a sweeping cross slash and kicks the knight off balance. It lands with a resounding thud, but no part of its armour falls off. She curses her luck. A moment of distraction that allows two of the Shades to sweep in and take hold of her.

She feels her breath catch in her throat as the Shade's mist forces its way inside her orifices. Her Life Essence ever so slowly starts to tick down the longer she remains in the mist.

"I - just - started - getting - it - back!" Aki condenses her mana and releases a shockwave of power.

The Shades release their grasp and vanish in a puff of smoke. All three are defeated, leaving only the full-plated knight that blocked the blast with its shield.

It starts to approach her when a massive, decrepit grey hand appears from underfoot and slams the knight against the spinning cube. The hand closes around both and begins to squeeze.

Surprised, Aki follows the mass of darkness the hand came from to find Winter with his hands raised.

A shell of darkness coats his immediate vicinity. Yet that isn't what has Aki in awe. Floating above Winter is a tall, thin figure shrouded by a black cloak. The cloak appears to cling to the entity's body in some parts as if it were wet, yet at the same time, it flaps weakly as if being blown by a mysterious breeze.

She'd seen it before. At the very end of Shur's bestiary. In the section labelled Danger.

Even drawn, the entity had sparked fear in her. It only had a short description and its name. Now, it floated before her, and the level of terror she felt was overwhelming.

Should she fight it? Run? No, of course not. She could do nothing, nor did she have to because it, for whatever reason, was allied with the little boy beneath it. Acting on the behest of Winter to crush the necromantic magic.

"An Owrou…" Aki stumbles, torn between making as much distance as she possibly can and going toward Winter.