14 Black Smoke (2)
"Move it closer," said the Spriggan to the blemmyae. "The shrine won't effectively consume if the animal is too far away."
Zeriphyle grumbled and nudged the bag closer to the little altar by extending its giant foot. The monster made it clear with its body language that it did not want to get any closer than necessary.
"Don't act like such a coward. His majesty gave me complete control over the altar's array two decades ago. You won't be eaten like that stupid animal." He point a crooked finger at the sack on the floor.
"We should only need a few more. Once the day shakes anew, we can exit the cavern again and finish making his majesty's weapon. He will be quite please with us, and I cannot wait for then."
The spriggan laughed maniacally and Zeriphyle opened the enormous mouth on its sternum, bellowing out a gurgling noise that could barely be identified as a laugh.
"Let us begin!" Shouted the old spriggan while raising his black staff. The whole cavern started growing colder and colder, making all the moisture in the room freeze into a light snow.
The black smoke that rose from the spriggan started whipping around like it was hit by high winds, throwing it back and forth. The little pedestal started vibrating rapidly, spitting out little droplets of black liquid from the cracks and onto the ground.
In less than a minute, the altar produced a large black puddle around itself, spilling its way towards the unconscious adventurer in the bag.
The puddle seemed to have a mind of its own and wrapped itself around the sack and grew upward. The fluid changed as it came into contact with the adventurer within, crystallizing into a reflective glass with the bag trapped within. Very audible groans of pain could be heard inside the forming crystal.
"I never grow tired of see his majesty's power work, such a splendid way to turn worthless insects into more than just food. He is a genius of his own realm." Said the spriggan in awe. He watched the painfully twisted process like it was a simply a natural thing of beauty.
His comrade was no longer paying attention as Zeriphyle turned with his mouth wide open, rolling his fat tongue in the air. He tasted something odd in the air, a motion of mana like it was moving away, or more correctly, being drawn away.
The blemmyae quickly discover the source standing at one of the many entrances to the cavern. An olive-skin colored girl was waving her hands around with the purple baggy robe somewhat interfering with the hand gestures.
Zeriphyle clicked his tongue at the spriggan who was too immersed in the crystal now raising a quarter of the way up the human in the bag.
"What are you on about you absolute imb-" He paused when he saw the lines glowing on the magician's robes at the entrance. "STOP HER!"
The spriggan realized a lot of mana in the room was directed straight into Rosetta's hands.
He made a furious face at the her, thinking 'I can't let that beast destroy our altar, it has stood here for so many years. The plan is so close to being complete, I won't let it be ruined.'
Luckily for him, she wasn't aiming for the pedestal; Rosetta was aiming for his bark covered face instead.
*****
After Galahad explained his plan, he left Rosetta to choose a target so her biggest attack could hopeful knock one of the two down. When she heard the spriggan bragging about his control over the array in the altar, she knew exactly who the target was gonna be.
When Rosetta casts Red Spark, she is vulnerable with two main weaknesses. The exhaustion from manipulating the mana inside and outside her body, and the stance she has to take before firing makes her immobile. She could only hope that they wouldn't come after her in the middle of casting.
As soon as she was ready, she whispered "Red Spark," when the little flame appeared in her hands. The same beam of red fire she shot at the giant silver rat went hurtling at the surprised spriggan in the center of the cavern.
It couldn't move fast enough to get out of the way, so with quick thinking, it folded its four insect-like wings in front of its body. The attempt seemed futile, but dark magic was a very powerful magic with a lot of uses. The spriggan was smart enough to infuse the membranes of the wings with dark magic to eat away at the fire like a form of decay.
The mana of Endora forms in many ways, if a mana user knows it well enough, they can develop magic to cancel another out.
The defense was working for a moment, but Rosetta's new mana boosting robe was starting to kick in. Right when the spell was gonna end, a huge pulse of blue fire shot out of her hands and travelled with the path of the red flames. When it made contact with the spriggan, the monster was suddenly launched twenty feet back as soon at the spell ended.
Rosetta fell backwards after deploying the spell for a full five seconds, the longest she had ever gone using such a massively draining spell. Galahad come forward and caught her, everyone else came forward to charge at the shocked blemmyae with weapons drawn and fury in their eyes.
Galahad helped her sit down and gave her a vial of yellow liquid.
She drank the stamina potion that Galahad gave her. He had ran out of the mana potions trying to help Venora, so the best he could do was give her the spare stamina potions to keep her conscious.
Mana exhaustion was the same as feeling the after effects exerting physically everything into a task. The best way to recover was with mana potions or nutrients and resting to recover.
Galahad leveled his face to Rosetta's. "You didn't need to run the spell for that long, I can't have you passing out just yet." He had a joking tone to his voice, but his eyes were checking everything to make sure she was okay.
"That old looking fuck had it coming." She gave him the best smile of mischief she could. Her eyes were still sinking lower as she felt the tiredness starting to fog her mind.
"Fair enough, just relax for a bit and wait until the signal to use the return spell." Galahad turned and started to run for the cavern. He only made it two steps before Rosetta grabbed his ankle from the floor.
She pulled him back and made him tumble back to her height on the floor. Before Galahad could argue with her about he needed to leave now, she randomly went to hug him.
While their heads were side-by-side, Rosetta whispered into his ear. "I know you lost your sister down here, but promise me you won't act recklessly. You still have a lot of people that love you on the surface." She retreated from the hug and sat down with her eyes closed.
Galahad was frozen for an instant as he digested her words, experiencing whole range of emotions he didn't want to from those words. 'I never told anyone about her, how did Rose find out?'
Galahad shook his head to clear his thoughts. 'I can ask her later, now is not the time.'
Galahad grabbed the hood from the back of his armor and pulled it over his head. He gave one quick look to Rosetta before entering the cold cavern.
*****
Trista, Victor, Heath, and Mycroft were already swiping their blades at the giant monster when Galahad entered the field.
Zeriphyle saw the little adventurers coming after him and was annoyed by the ruckus they made. When they approached, he started swinging his massive arms like clubs, hitting the ground hard enough to shake the battle class fighters off their balance a little.
The rush at the big monster turned out to be futile. It was nearly fourteen-feet (4.3m) tall with abnormally long arms that almost touched the ground. His hand had more range and power than anyone of the four's weapons. A single swing was capable of crushing them by sheer force of impact.
That was the risk of fighting higher level monster, they would had an abundant amount of strength that could kill anything with weaker levels in an instant. Something the school system in Teramore drilled into their brains since then were kids.
All they could do was surround the monster to exploit the limited range of its peripheral vision. Another lesson they learned when they were young.
Trista recalled that lesson while retreating a few steps back and sheathing her two long daggers. She grabbed a throwing knife from her belt in each hand, drawing an elbow back like a spring.
After Zeriphyle swiped dangerously close to Heath, he turned to keep berating him with his arms but stopped at the pain he felt in his right thigh.
Victor waiting for a gap in the swinging arms to hit from a blind spot. When Zeriphyle focused on one of the sword brothers, Victor found an opportunity to jam his axe full force into a thigh that was at his shoulder level.
It's muscle sinews stopped the axe from going anywhere past a few inches, stopping the attack from fatally wounding the giant. It splurged out black blood and chunks of flesh until the blade stopped piercing through the skin.
The monster whipped his forearm back a little and it's wrist collided with Victor's chest, flinging him into Mycroft. They toppled over as splinters of Victor's chest armor rained down on them, it was shattered from the impact. If anyone else took that hit, they would have most definitely died.
The force broke only a few of Victor's ribs, fractured his collarbone, and knocked all the wind out of his lungs. His heavy armor saved him, but the problem was he and Mycroft were now vulnerable on the ground.
Zeriphyle pulled the axe out of his leg, it looked tiny in his one, but it certainly didn't look harmless. Especially when he started to wind up his arm to throw it.
He was about to swing his arm and axe at the two down adventurers, but he realized that the pain of his upper leg was spreading to his back.
Zeriphyle swiped its other hand against its back like it was itchy and felt the pain grow to the fingers he touched with. He brought his hand in front of his large eyes and noticed three tiny little knives in his finger tips.
Trista was running quietly behind the monsters back and throwing her daggers into the softest skin she could find. They wouldn't amount to much on their own, but the knives had the special orbs sitting on the hilt.
The orbs were actually tiny bulbs of poison that would inject from the tube travelling through the hilt and to the point of the knife. A total of five were already in the monsters back and Trista planned on throwing the others in her hands as well.
'This monster maybe powerful, but it can't survive enough poison to kill a mammoth sized beast.' She grinned at the accuracy of her throws. Once the poison took full effect, they wouldn't have to worry about the blemmyae for long.
At least that was what she hoped for.
Zeriphyle dropped the axe to the ground and felt everything in his body starting to weaken. He may not have been the smartest beast, but he knew when the end was near for him.
The large monster brought its hands up to its mouth and started letting out big bursts of noise from its diaphragm. It echoed loud grunts like an injured gorilla into the cavern, calling out to the tunnels.
"HOOO, HOO, HOOO, HOOOOOOO!"
Trista urged Galahad in her mind to hurry. 'Come on Galahad, hurry the fuck up. We need to leave now.'
Galahad was nowhere to be found in the fighting because he was wearing his hood up and hugging the dark wall from the side. Using the darkness of the cavern to give him cover with the black dyed armor.
He was still powering his tethers the best he could, but suppressing the blue light to visibly vanish while he moved was not an easy task. It didn't help that he drained a lot of his mana on Venora; his level was not high enough to recover a lot of internal mana, so he was on a time limit.
It wasn't until he was at the opposite side from the fight, that he began a sprint to the center. He hoped the monster was too focused on the others to see his attempted rescue of Kara.
