Unbound

"Walk lightly and with the darkness' Blessing," Osyk said, pointing at the cluttered undergrowth and placing his foot in demonstration. "Toe-heel, like so. If your tread is a whisper, then the story behind you will not overwhelm what comes."

Loquis attempted to copy what Osyk was demonstrating, but found his feet entirely too ungainly. His Half-Orc heritage left him with bonuses to Strength and Endurance, but nothing for his Agility or Dexterity. Training those had been a low priority, even after he'd gained admittance to the Arclight society—and by that point, he was all in on Willpower and Intelligence. At the very least, he wasn't the only one struggling. Their entire group was fumbling through the underbrush, robes and armor and weapons catching on every rock and root. A Bone fighter stumbled and got his head caught up in a vine, requiring one of the Blades to cut him free.

Pava leaned into his shoulder, her own sword out and low as she cut her way forward. "Did you understand any of that?"

Loquis shushed his friend. "He's teaching us about Stealth."

"...embrace the darkness, for it will hide you as it hides the rest. The light has its time, and all things must come to it eventually, but there is balance. Seek the balance, tip it in your favor, else your prey will hear your story before you can write its ending." Osyk stopped talking and smiled at them all. "Understand?"

"No?" said another Blade, like Pava. He was a strapping young Dwarf, beardless and all, and had a very slender thrusting saber at his hip. "Can you talk in normal words? The common tongue?"

A few of the other Legionnaires laughed, though Pava frowned at the Dwarf. "Don't be an ass, Asaad."

"Me? I'm not the one explaining how to Stealth by talking about story-time!" Asaad shouted. The Dwarven Blade was always causing trouble, but usually that meant picking fights with the Fists or threatening a few of the Arclights. Loquis furrowed his brows. He was insulting their allies now, a people that were apart of the Autarch's Stronghold long before they had arrived.

"If you listen for once, then maybe you'd actually learn something," he grated out, and Asaad turned to him in surprise. Loquis was surprised at himself, in fact, but he kept going. "The Autarch has decreed that we all work together. Onslaught and the Lord Hand explained this."

"Well, well. The mage finally speaks up. You think I don't listen? You think I don't know we were told to pair up with some worthless mages and weaponless layabouts?" Asaad prowled toward Loquis and raised a blunt finger at the Half-Orc. "If you were a man, I'd fight you right here and now."

Asaad sneered, his fleshy, beardless face splotchy with the mounting heat. "But you're not. You're just a mage."

"Enough," a voice rumbled, and it was like rocks falling. An enormous blue hand reached across the forest and pointed at the Dwarf and Loquis both. "This talking is worthless. Unless you mean to draw blood, we move on. Now."

Loquis swallowed, trying not to show any fear of the looming Frost Giant. He doubted he was very successful. The creature—Geir, he was called—stood eleven strides tall, one of the shorter specimens, but still powerfully built and possessing formidable ice magic. There was no world in which the Half-Orc wished to oppose any of the Frost Giants.

"Bad enough they mingled us with trash like you," Asaad muttered at Loquis. "Now we have monsters giving orders."

"Shut it, Ass-aad," Pava said pleasantly.

The churlish Dwarf opened his mouth to say something nasty, but Osyk motioned them all to silence.

"Wary. Enemies ahead," the Henaari said softly.

Loquis crept after the Dawnguard scout, moving as quietly as his weak Body could manage. Pava and the others followed, even the giant, until they had emerged into a clearing by the edge of the lake. They had been told to hunt the jungles of the oasis, and while there were beasts aplenty, Onslaught had actually told them to find the true threats. Designated as the squad leader, Osyk had quickly led them into the dense jungle and along a barely-there game trail for the last hour while the jungle woke up all around them. Now, the clearing buzzed with the sound of those odd beetles and the chittering noise of some sort of rodent.

"What is it?" Pava asked. "I don't see anything."

Loquis felt something crawling across his skin and shivered. There was nothing there, but a phantom pressure tickled his exposed hands and arms. In response, lightning crackled across his knuckles and the mage look sharply to the left.

"There!"

A shape exploded from the sand, a creature as big as an avum with eight legs and a dark carapace. Claws snapped at them, catching the hooked spear Osyk slashed at it and hauling the Henaari straight into the air.

"Aaah!"

"Cask Scorpions!" Asaad screamed. He yanked his sword from its sheath and thrust forward. A vibrant blue slash appeared across the scorpion's claw, scratching its chitin but not breaking it. Two more followed, the Blade engaging his Skills, sword moving in a devastating blur.

He didn't notice when the tail lifted and thrust, fast as his own strike.

"Fury's Ward!" Loquis shouted, pouring Mana from his feet even as he tackled the Dwarf to the ground. A sharp pressure hit him, slamming against the Half-Orc's body from all directions as the ward dispersed the Scorpion's attack. They rolled, both Legionnaires a tangle of arms, legs, and sand.

Fury's Ward is level 28!

"Gerroff me!" Asaad threw Loquis from his chest. The Dwarf's Strength was impressive and Loquis' body thin, so he was tossed a good five strides away, landing with an pained cry. "Don't you dare interfere in my fight!"

"You were gonna die, you imbecile!" Loquis shouted over the sounds of battle and slithering sands. He looked up. The Scorpion came at them again. "Fury Ward!"

Another shield of crackling energy formed around the Dwarf just before the Scorpion's tail struck a second time. Loquis gasped, the pressure transferred to him. Too much!

A third strike and the Ward shattered. Claws slammed into Asaad's blade, knocking it askew as one of its sharp legs slashed at the Dwarf's own. Blood blossomed along his thigh, and he stumbled back. The tail came back, bobbing and weaving. It struck.

And skittered off an icy shield on the arm of Geir. The Frost Giant roared as he ducked under and thrust an ice-forged spear under the creature's carapace. The Cask Scorpion screeched, pivoting wildly, but it could not stop the giant's Strength. Another bellow and the overgrown insect was flipped onto its back...and Geir jumped atop it, shield and spear going to work.

You Have Killed A Cask Scorpion!

XP Earned!

"Fiend's fury," Asaad gasped. "I had it!"

Geir rumbled. "You did not. Stand. There are more."

Loquis had been so consumed by the fight, he hadn't noticed anything else, but now he shouted in surprise. All around them the sands at the shoreline had burst asunder, and a dozen Cask Scorpions had rushed their people. Battle raged as groups of their squad—two or three at a time—all tried to fight off one or two of the creatures, but blood was on the ground. And it wasn't monster blood.

"Form up! Form up!" Osyk screamed, desperately slashing at an advancing Scorpion. "On me! For the Raven!"

No one listened. The Blades and Bones were busy engaging their own foes, strides away from one another but without a single attempt toward cooperation. Nevin, the only other Arclight, was all alone. Before Loquis could move or cast, a barbed tail burst through his chest. Killing him instantly.

The insects charged through them, driving them into even more fractious pieces, and Loquis despaired.

"We fight!" Geir rumbled, grappling with the nearest Scorpion. "Tu Krakora! Thunderweaver! Muster your strength and hurl it at this foe!"

Pava dove in, a slashing cyclone. Her longsword smashed aside the Scorpion's flailing claws and jabbing legs. Asaad even thrust, knocking its weaving tail askew. Loquis gasped, and brought his hands together with a clap of thunder.

Fulmination!

A double-finger thick blast of blue-white lightning snapped out of Loquis' palms. His friend and allies leaped aside at the last moment, just as the bolt hit the Scorpion dead in it's drooling mandibles. It screeched in unholy pain and horror, and a piece of Loquis felt a furious glee.

Fulmination!

Fulmination!

Fulmination!

Bolt after bolt seared the beast, until its dark carapace was charred and sparking. Until his use of Mana made him feel suddenly lightheaded. He worried, for an instant, that the creature would attack in his moment of weakness, but it was unfounded. There were cracks and wet, squelching sounds before the trilling sound of a System notification.

You Have Killed A Cask Scorpion!

XP Earned!

Congratulations!

You Have Earned A Title!

The Wrath Of The Heavens (Rare)!

Lightning comes to your ever easier with each passing day, forging your being into one of galvanizing force.

+5 WIL, INT, PER

Power surged into Loquis, flaring across his channels and core space like a black storm. It was all he could do to take a ragged breath, and look around him.

His squad was falling back, the tide of Scorpions still too much. Geir and Asaad and Pava were all breathing heavily beside him.

"We—we move onto the next one," Loquis said, a bit tremulously. "Take on the two fighting the Blades."

"Do you have enough juice left?" Pava asked. Her own arm was trembling, the defined muscles twitching despite her white-knuckled grip on her sword.

"I'll...I'll be fine," Loquis said. Geir rumbled, but whether it was in disbelief or agreement, the Half-Orc couldn't tell. "We need to rally. We—"

The earth bucked, rising beneath their feet and dropping so hard all of them were thrown. Loquis cried out, his back smashing into a rock as the groaning, shaking sands exploded into a frenzy of motion. The waters surged, and waves of dark, cool liquid hit them and hurled their prone bodies back into the treeline. Loquis gasped for breath amid the foam and spray, barely regaining his feet as something immense rose from the waters.

It was a Scorpion, three times as big as Geir. So big that it could not possibly be the same creature. He flared his Analyze, only able to catch its name.

Name: Manadrenched Scorpion

It's claws came down, like a falling mountainside, and the shoreline was obliterated. Legionnaires, Henaari, Giant, none of them were immune to the sheer force of its impact. Had Loquis not already been fetched up against a tree, he would have been tossed like a child's doll into the jungle, where even now the Cask Scorpions were skittering and attacking with abandon.

The Manadrenched Scorpion scuttled forward several steps, raising it's claws again. This time it aimed at the trees. At them. Loquis tried to cry out, but his breath wouldn't come. Lightning skittered from his channels, unformed and unfocused.

The claws came down.

And were seized by a burning, red-gold flame.

"Fiend," Loquis whispered, heart in his throat. "Oh thank the gods."

The flames spread, splashing down over the beach and sweeping into the trees. All around him, the mage saw hulking forms stopped in their tracks as fire ignited their chitin, while the Manadrenched monstrosity shook above.

"Fucking bugs!" the Autarch shouted, and the force of it was enough to shake the trees around them. "You want to crush something? I'll show you how!"

An impact sounded so loud that Loquis felt his Health drop, and the two-dozen stride scorpion lurched to the right. Lightning crackled around its too-large body, and the thing screamed.

Loquis stumbled into the jungle, quickly finding Pava and Asaad behind a grove of tangled trees. Together they ran to the nearest Scorpion, where Geir was already attack its paralyzed form. It was half-eaten by the Fiend's hungry flames, but died to a saber thrust between its mandibles and through its brain.

You Have Killed A Cask Scorpion!

XP Earned!

"To the next!" Loquis shouted, already running. The huge beast behind them screamed again and again, but the Fiend did not stop.

And neither did they.

Cardinal Flame is level 81!

Adamant Discord is level 80!

Rain of Cataclysm is level 51!

Corrosive Strike is level 64!

Wild Threnody is level 68!

Armored Skin is level 76!

Cloudstep is level 48!

"Goddamn, that was a workout."

Felix stood atop the now-still form of the Manadrenched Scorpion, nursing his shoulder as he kept Sovereign of Flesh on a low burn. He could feel the injury knitting itself back together and eating up his Essence stores as a result. He'd used his battleform during the fight, as with the Dustborn Wraiths, hoping to get it to Tier up but it hadn't been enough. "That last level before Tiering is always such a pain."

Chthonic Tribute!

The mass of monster beneath him sublimated into a dense, black cloud streaked with blue-green light and a deep, pulsing purple. He dropped through it, splashing right into the shallow water.

Oh right.

His Garment shifted into swim trunks, letting his naked calves soak in the wonderfully chilly waters. Felix scanned the beach as he walked and ate Essence. A few more of those giant scorpions were around, but they had been surrounded by his people, all of whom were hurling Skills at it from a distance. Two more monsters died as he observed. The squad had done a decent job with these monsters, though he didn't miss several bodies washed up against the trees. That stabbed at him more than a little, guilt and sorrow warring against the anger in him. Of them all, the guilt was almost as useless as the anger.

I was the one who sent them out like this, who brought them along, he chastised himself. The monsters killed them, but I'm the cause. I have to be better.

And, he admitted to himself. They need to get stronger. Or else they'll never survive this desert.

A giant spotted him as he came ashore, and it dropped to a knee before him. "Tu Ostakkur. My Lord."

Felix waved him back to his feet. "Where is your squad leader...Geir?"

Geir stood, all eleven feet of him, and looked proud that Felix knew his name. It didn't seem to occur to the giant that Felix might have just Analyzed him. "Osyk is there, leading the squad against the last insect. It is nearly dead, so he sent me here to see how we could aid you."

Obviously, Felix could feel the squad fighting not twenty yards into the dense jungle, though he couldn't see them by any standard definition of the word.

"Gather the dead. Teammate and monster alike. Do any of you have the Butchering Skill?" he asked.

"No, my Lord. But we all have the dressing-knife your Forgemaster made for us," Geir said, displaying a blade more like a machete on his hip. One of the simpler enchantments Rafny had taught Harn, the dressing-knives were inlaid with an array to stop monster corpses from decaying for a period of time.

"Good. Use it." Felix felt his ears perk up. In the distance, he could feel more things wakening. He could almost hear the volley of spells and Skills against them, and it wasn't more Scorpions. It was too far for that. "Return to the camp and report back to Harn or Reed. There's more out there."

Adamant Discord!

Felix burst up through the trees, his Body and Mind sore but pressing on anyway. He flared the Skill again, shifting directions so he was yanked along the top, inches from the canopy. The sound of battle grew louder.

He dove into the trees once more.

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