Mage Tank
Author: Cornman8700
Chapter 173: Surprise Mimicry
The next section of the Delve was a dimensional maze. The hallway ended at a T-junction, each side of which led to a crossroad with 3 more potential paths to choose from.
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They did not run out of time.
That didn’t mean the maze didn’t take anything out of them. Despite Sgt. Baltae’s talent with memory, puzzle solving, and threat detection, his skill with neutralizing the traps they came across was underdeveloped compared to his ability to find them in the first place. His party relied on avoiding traps rather than disarming them.
However, many of the traps were
unavoidable, leading to Dimensional attacks, more collapsing walls, and waves of teleporting spiders that did little damage but loaded the Littans up with Toxicity, among other things. By the time they’d escaped, three of them had taken significant damage. Captain Pio had burned a lot of mana on Heal, Shielding, and Cleanse, and the tank had dumped big chunks of stamina on AoE attacks.
Sgt. Madel came out in the best shape. Her machine-gun attack speed didn’t look like it relied on any techniques, so she could tear through enemies all day without running out of juice. Her flight skill and Speed kept her out of the way of much of the danger, and anytime something got close enough to attack her, she would disappear and stab it–or something else–in the back.
The trade-off was that she didn’t have any utility and was best equipped for dealing with 1 enemy at a time. She was a dedicated elite killer whose main contribution was inexhaustible single-target damage. Invaluable in many circumstances, but useless for drawn-out puzzles and traps. Even the waves of spiders were a bad matchup since there were hundreds of the creatures and she could kill at most 6 or 7 at a time, whereas Sgt. Guar and Sgt. Baltae could spam AoEs that hit everything within a certain radius.
The stealth specialist never made an appearance. In fact, I’d forgotten the person even existed by the time they were out of the probability maze.
The maze terminated in a small palace filled with cursed loot. Baltae easily discerned the hazards the items posed, and the group was forced to rush through since several of the items had blanket effects that would slowly drain their maximum health through Wicked damage. That couldn’t be healed, and would only recover through natural regeneration. Even potions didn’t help.
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Having avoided the perils of careless greed–a vice even the most talented and discerning Delver might sometimes fall prey to–the Littans advanced into the most hostile chamber yet.
The floor was a field of jagged spikes, tipped with space-warping energy that would shred even the thickest of armor. It was untraversable through normal means, and I suspected the Littans would struggle with this one. Beyond the field of spikes was a lake that abutted a slightly curved wall, with no obvious exits to the arena-sized room. To make matters worse, the ceiling was 200 feet above, covered in large stalactites, and the home of two dozen more Abyssal Gekkogs.
The party was given two minutes to hang out on a small platform, survey the room, and plan. Then, needles started warping into their flesh.
Captain Pio covered the group with more Shielding and Sgt. Guar spawned a dome of energy that emanated from his roundshield and created temporary cover. Unfortunately, the Gekkogs didn’t care about the transparent obstruction, and their needles portalled through Guar’s countermeasure without issue. It was the first time I’d seen one of the Littans make a serious tactical error.
The Gekkogs were also smarter than I’d initially given them credit for. Without Guar serving as a meat shield for the others, the Gekkogs focused half of their attacks on Sgt. Baltae, whose Shielding immediately shattered and whose body glowed blue as Mana Barrier soaked damage and probably saved the man’s life. The other half focused on Captain Pio, but the woman was much tankier than she looked, blocking most of the attacks with her Shield and eating the rest without any visible reaction, even when needles skewered through her limbs.
Lt. Madel rocketed toward the ceiling, her body stuttering in and out of existence as portals shunted her forward to augment her substantial velocity. She made it to the first Gekkog in under a second, slaughtering it with 3 attacks before disappearing and reappearing next to another Gekkog which she eviscerated with the same ease. The creatures were using Optical Camouflage, but Madel had some way of perceiving them despite this.
The Gekkogs redirected and concentrated fire on Lt. Madel. Despite the woman’s insane Speed and nigh-miraculous capacity to DODGE, she couldn’t avoid everything and started taking hits. However, her sacrifice took the pressure off the group below, allowing Pio to Heal and Cleanse. The surprise attack was much more effective than the last round of Gekkogs, and Sgt. Baltae was on the ground, bleeding heavily as Pio concentrated her efforts on keeping the man from death’s cold embrace.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Sgt. Baltae was the team’s main source of ranged damage, and with him out of the fight it was up to Madel to fly between each Gekkog and deal with it personally. Guar took a position over Pio and Baltae, obscuring the pair from sight. The Gekkogs could hit anything they could see, which is how they avoided Guar’s dome, but couldn’t see through the wall of metal-clad Littan.
Lt. Madel finally used a technique, and a dozen copies of her throwing daggers fanned out in front of her, striking 3 of the Gekkogs. She disappeared and caught one of the knives as it flew, redirecting it back into the Gekkog it had missed, then thrust her shortsword into its neck. As it fell, she was already blurring to the next Gekkog, connecting with a 3-hit combo of hammer, spear, and blade.
She began spamming her dagger attack and moving off Gekkogs before they were dead, letting the Bleeding and Toxicity finish them. She used the time to make attacks on the others, despite needles raining into her from the ones dying to her DoTs. She’d taken some serious damage, and the moment she’d cleared the enemies she hurtled toward the ground, blood pouring from a dozen wounds. Pio hit her with a Cleanse as soon as she was in range, and Madel crashed into the platform in a heap, nearly sliding off of it and into the spikes. A streak of vomit ran across the floor as Madel’s body tried to purge itself of an onslaught of poison.
Pio burned another Cleanse and pushed 2 Heals into the Lieutenant, then knelt to the ground, fingers rubbing at her temple.
I thought over the encounter and how my party might have handled it. Out of the gate, See and Reveal would have pierced the camo. Based on the damage numbers Grotto had given me, both Varrin and I had enough defense and DR to be nearly immune to the Kinetic damage. Xim wouldn’t have struggled either. All three of us had bonuses to resisting poison, and I was immune to Bleeding.
Next, everyone in the party had a way to deal with enemies 200 feet above us. Three of us could fly, Nuralie could teleport in the dim cavern, and four of us could output serious ranged damage. The sneak attack might have spelled trouble for Etja, but between her Mana Barrier and my Life Warden, she wouldn’t have ended up in as dire straits as Sgt. Baltae.
It wasn’t a fair comparison, of course. We had significantly higher stats than this level 15 party, and our experience with platinum Delves prepared us for this kind of obnoxious setup. The Littans were currently having a serious psychic conversation, and I expected it was going something like “Fuck! This shit is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!”
While the encounter revealed some shortcomings in the Littan party comp, they’d ultimately had the tools needed to overcome it. Sgt. Guar wasn’t in much danger from the Gekkogs, and had he not been defending Baltae, I was certain he’d found some way to launch himself to the ceiling. The man could probably jump that high or just start chucking his hammer as any sensible Blunt wielder should.
There also hadn’t been any Cursed stacks flying around, so the stealth fighter was MIA, making them a 4-person team for the fight.
I asked Grotto.
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Captain Pio pulled out a mana potion and drank it, then handed a stamina potion to Sgt. Guar. The Littans were finally getting a few minutes to collect themselves.
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I allowed my vision to mirror Grotto’s, following him toward the edge of the cavern’s roof, where several recesses led to more Gekkog hidey holes. There was a burrow within where the Gekkogs made their nests.
It was total pandemonium.
Another 13 Gekkogs were in a complete battle royale. Some were Berserked, others had full-blown Psychotic debuffs, and several were fighting one another for no discernable reason. The ones that still had control of their faculties were either Weakened, Paranoid, Feared, or Paralyzed, and every Gekkog in the burrow had stacks of Cursed growing completely out of control.
Amidst the frenzy, only one Gekkog was uninjured, and it stalked between the others while avoiding the fight. I tried to bring up its notifications, but nothing came back. I couldn’t even identify it. Once the other 12 Gekkogs were Cursed to shit and half-dead, it opened its mouth and fired an attack spell at the Gekkog that looked to be in the best shape.
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After firing its attack, the imposter deftly slipped behind another Gekkog. The Psychic attack tore at the soul of its target Gekkog, which spun in response and searched for the source of the assault. It locked onto the Gekkog the imposter hid behind, screeched, and fired a stinger into its ally’s giant mouth. This sort of whodunnit combat went on for another minute until the imposter finished off the final survivor. It then began rooting around the burrow, digging through nests and poking at the bodies.
This was certainly the missing fifth member of the Littan party, but nothing I had could pierce the disguise. See had no effect, and not even its soul looked out of place compared to the normal Gekkogs. The Gekkog also drifted in and out of my awareness, even though I intently followed its movements. My mind kept pushing the idea that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on in front of me, despite how absurd that thought was.
Eventually, the Gekkog finished its perusal, and its body began to shrink. Over the next minute, it slowly morphed into a small blue bird. It spread its wings and took off. Like a fly darting out of my vision, it disappeared.
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I read over the text of the spell again.
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The lake beyond the field of spikes erupted, revealing a too-human face stretched across a 20-foot-wide, football-shaped skull. Bulbous orange eyes rolled in their sockets as the creature let out a familiar bellowing moan, like the dying screams of a ten-thousand-pound infant.
[
]
[
]
[
]
[
]
They did not run out of time.
That didn’t mean the maze didn’t take anything out of them. Despite Sgt. Baltae’s talent with memory, puzzle solving, and threat detection, his skill with neutralizing the traps they came across was underdeveloped compared to his ability to find them in the first place. His party relied on avoiding traps rather than disarming them.
However, many of the traps were
unavoidable, leading to Dimensional attacks, more collapsing walls, and waves of teleporting spiders that did little damage but loaded the Littans up with Toxicity, among other things. By the time they’d escaped, three of them had taken significant damage. Captain Pio had burned a lot of mana on Heal, Shielding, and Cleanse, and the tank had dumped big chunks of stamina on AoE attacks.
Sgt. Madel came out in the best shape. Her machine-gun attack speed didn’t look like it relied on any techniques, so she could tear through enemies all day without running out of juice. Her flight skill and Speed kept her out of the way of much of the danger, and anytime something got close enough to attack her, she would disappear and stab it–or something else–in the back.
The trade-off was that she didn’t have any utility and was best equipped for dealing with 1 enemy at a time. She was a dedicated elite killer whose main contribution was inexhaustible single-target damage. Invaluable in many circumstances, but useless for drawn-out puzzles and traps. Even the waves of spiders were a bad matchup since there were hundreds of the creatures and she could kill at most 6 or 7 at a time, whereas Sgt. Guar and Sgt. Baltae could spam AoEs that hit everything within a certain radius.
The stealth specialist never made an appearance. In fact, I’d forgotten the person even existed by the time they were out of the probability maze.
The maze terminated in a small palace filled with cursed loot. Baltae easily discerned the hazards the items posed, and the group was forced to rush through since several of the items had blanket effects that would slowly drain their maximum health through Wicked damage. That couldn’t be healed, and would only recover through natural regeneration. Even potions didn’t help.
[
]
[
]
[
The
]
[
]
Having avoided the perils of careless greed–a vice even the most talented and discerning Delver might sometimes fall prey to–the Littans advanced into the most hostile chamber yet.
The floor was a field of jagged spikes, tipped with space-warping energy that would shred even the thickest of armor. It was untraversable through normal means, and I suspected the Littans would struggle with this one. Beyond the field of spikes was a lake that abutted a slightly curved wall, with no obvious exits to the arena-sized room. To make matters worse, the ceiling was 200 feet above, covered in large stalactites, and the home of two dozen more Abyssal Gekkogs.
The party was given two minutes to hang out on a small platform, survey the room, and plan. Then, needles started warping into their flesh.
Captain Pio covered the group with more Shielding and Sgt. Guar spawned a dome of energy that emanated from his roundshield and created temporary cover. Unfortunately, the Gekkogs didn’t care about the transparent obstruction, and their needles portalled through Guar’s countermeasure without issue. It was the first time I’d seen one of the Littans make a serious tactical error.
The Gekkogs were also smarter than I’d initially given them credit for. Without Guar serving as a meat shield for the others, the Gekkogs focused half of their attacks on Sgt. Baltae, whose Shielding immediately shattered and whose body glowed blue as Mana Barrier soaked damage and probably saved the man’s life. The other half focused on Captain Pio, but the woman was much tankier than she looked, blocking most of the attacks with her Shield and eating the rest without any visible reaction, even when needles skewered through her limbs.
Lt. Madel rocketed toward the ceiling, her body stuttering in and out of existence as portals shunted her forward to augment her substantial velocity. She made it to the first Gekkog in under a second, slaughtering it with 3 attacks before disappearing and reappearing next to another Gekkog which she eviscerated with the same ease. The creatures were using Optical Camouflage, but Madel had some way of perceiving them despite this.
The Gekkogs redirected and concentrated fire on Lt. Madel. Despite the woman’s insane Speed and nigh-miraculous capacity to DODGE, she couldn’t avoid everything and started taking hits. However, her sacrifice took the pressure off the group below, allowing Pio to Heal and Cleanse. The surprise attack was much more effective than the last round of Gekkogs, and Sgt. Baltae was on the ground, bleeding heavily as Pio concentrated her efforts on keeping the man from death’s cold embrace.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Sgt. Baltae was the team’s main source of ranged damage, and with him out of the fight it was up to Madel to fly between each Gekkog and deal with it personally. Guar took a position over Pio and Baltae, obscuring the pair from sight. The Gekkogs could hit anything they could see, which is how they avoided Guar’s dome, but couldn’t see through the wall of metal-clad Littan.
Lt. Madel finally used a technique, and a dozen copies of her throwing daggers fanned out in front of her, striking 3 of the Gekkogs. She disappeared and caught one of the knives as it flew, redirecting it back into the Gekkog it had missed, then thrust her shortsword into its neck. As it fell, she was already blurring to the next Gekkog, connecting with a 3-hit combo of hammer, spear, and blade.
She began spamming her dagger attack and moving off Gekkogs before they were dead, letting the Bleeding and Toxicity finish them. She used the time to make attacks on the others, despite needles raining into her from the ones dying to her DoTs. She’d taken some serious damage, and the moment she’d cleared the enemies she hurtled toward the ground, blood pouring from a dozen wounds. Pio hit her with a Cleanse as soon as she was in range, and Madel crashed into the platform in a heap, nearly sliding off of it and into the spikes. A streak of vomit ran across the floor as Madel’s body tried to purge itself of an onslaught of poison.
Pio burned another Cleanse and pushed 2 Heals into the Lieutenant, then knelt to the ground, fingers rubbing at her temple.
I thought over the encounter and how my party might have handled it. Out of the gate, See and Reveal would have pierced the camo. Based on the damage numbers Grotto had given me, both Varrin and I had enough defense and DR to be nearly immune to the Kinetic damage. Xim wouldn’t have struggled either. All three of us had bonuses to resisting poison, and I was immune to Bleeding.
Next, everyone in the party had a way to deal with enemies 200 feet above us. Three of us could fly, Nuralie could teleport in the dim cavern, and four of us could output serious ranged damage. The sneak attack might have spelled trouble for Etja, but between her Mana Barrier and my Life Warden, she wouldn’t have ended up in as dire straits as Sgt. Baltae.
It wasn’t a fair comparison, of course. We had significantly higher stats than this level 15 party, and our experience with platinum Delves prepared us for this kind of obnoxious setup. The Littans were currently having a serious psychic conversation, and I expected it was going something like “Fuck! This shit is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!”
While the encounter revealed some shortcomings in the Littan party comp, they’d ultimately had the tools needed to overcome it. Sgt. Guar wasn’t in much danger from the Gekkogs, and had he not been defending Baltae, I was certain he’d found some way to launch himself to the ceiling. The man could probably jump that high or just start chucking his hammer as any sensible Blunt wielder should.
There also hadn’t been any Cursed stacks flying around, so the stealth fighter was MIA, making them a 4-person team for the fight.
I asked Grotto.
[
]
[
Expansion
]
Captain Pio pulled out a mana potion and drank it, then handed a stamina potion to Sgt. Guar. The Littans were finally getting a few minutes to collect themselves.
[
]
I allowed my vision to mirror Grotto’s, following him toward the edge of the cavern’s roof, where several recesses led to more Gekkog hidey holes. There was a burrow within where the Gekkogs made their nests.
It was total pandemonium.
Another 13 Gekkogs were in a complete battle royale. Some were Berserked, others had full-blown Psychotic debuffs, and several were fighting one another for no discernable reason. The ones that still had control of their faculties were either Weakened, Paranoid, Feared, or Paralyzed, and every Gekkog in the burrow had stacks of Cursed growing completely out of control.
Amidst the frenzy, only one Gekkog was uninjured, and it stalked between the others while avoiding the fight. I tried to bring up its notifications, but nothing came back. I couldn’t even identify it. Once the other 12 Gekkogs were Cursed to shit and half-dead, it opened its mouth and fired an attack spell at the Gekkog that looked to be in the best shape.
[
]
After firing its attack, the imposter deftly slipped behind another Gekkog. The Psychic attack tore at the soul of its target Gekkog, which spun in response and searched for the source of the assault. It locked onto the Gekkog the imposter hid behind, screeched, and fired a stinger into its ally’s giant mouth. This sort of whodunnit combat went on for another minute until the imposter finished off the final survivor. It then began rooting around the burrow, digging through nests and poking at the bodies.
This was certainly the missing fifth member of the Littan party, but nothing I had could pierce the disguise. See had no effect, and not even its soul looked out of place compared to the normal Gekkogs. The Gekkog also drifted in and out of my awareness, even though I intently followed its movements. My mind kept pushing the idea that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on in front of me, despite how absurd that thought was.
Eventually, the Gekkog finished its perusal, and its body began to shrink. Over the next minute, it slowly morphed into a small blue bird. It spread its wings and took off. Like a fly darting out of my vision, it disappeared.
[
]
[
]
I read over the text of the spell again.
[
]
[
]
[
]
The lake beyond the field of spikes erupted, revealing a too-human face stretched across a 20-foot-wide, football-shaped skull. Bulbous orange eyes rolled in their sockets as the creature let out a familiar bellowing moan, like the dying screams of a ten-thousand-pound infant.