The wayward commander part 2
Location: skyworld - the ivory tower
Wordcount: 3039 (+4)
Edward Portsmith: Level 1 EXP:
////////// (8/10)
Level 12 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) (37/120)
With the two miniboss of the Ivory citadel well and truly occupied, Edward (equipped with a pair of stylish sunglasses by nastasia upon his conversion that hid his corrupt visage) lead Setonia and a troop of angels on a chain of corrupted core crushes with his pre-knowledge of both their locations and the defenses surrounding them.
However, as they went deeper, the man’s false vision of things, of the corruption’s soldiers as mortals of the commonwealth and the tower not overwhelmed with its black tendrils, caused a few minor confusions. Things not quite where he thought, or what he thought. Still, these were subtle, and with three layers of mental manipulation, Galeem’s, the corruption’s and now the queen’s, all piled on top of eachother, he was not in a mental state to detect that this was occuring before it was too late.
”We’ll be coming up on a chamber soon that holds the second greatest concentration of cores. Yet it also contains a throne that assails the mind of those who witness it, forcing them to attack their allies if it succeeds at overcoming their willpower, and simply stunning those that it does not” he informed the assembled unit within a chamber that had two small entrances and 100% absolutely did not contain third more important one.
”The effect is brief, yet devastating. Which is why we must enter prepared rather than stumbling into it. Feather shields first who can reflect the effect, then only as many swords and bows as the staffs can cleanse as soon as the affliction takes hold of them”He received nods, and one important question which was “And where is the entrance to this chamber?” to which he replied
”Behind a large gateway, several people wide, engraved with the image of an armored warrior, his sword tip planted to the ground, his eyes weeping” The angels, more or less to a feather, glanced up a large gateway, several people wide, engraved with the image of an armored angel, his sword tip planted to the ground, and with black tendrils of corruption crawling down from his eyes like tears.
“Like that door?”
”What door?” Edward asked, looking at a blank wall with confusion, before managing to only get an understated
”ah” of comprehension as the gateway the corruption had blinded him to the presence of was flung open and all hell broke loose.
Within sat the described throne, tendrils wrapped around it and reaching to the sky, upon it a tome with feelers and teeth jagging out of its cover, and the sight of this assailed the minds of the troops with visions of madness.
Some went insane the second they saw it, driving blades and arrows into each other or into the backs of those who had merely been stunned by the affliction. Worse, out of the now open gate flooded the forces of the corruption, fallen angels (their lower halves contorted into a writhing
sea of tendrils) and their imposterous masters rushed forward to take down their foes before they could recover.
The only ones standing against this were, as Edward had predicted, the feather shields, who merely blinked in the face of the madness before raising their bulwarks to weather the storm. Yet they had their work cut out for them trying to protect their mad or incapacitated comrades both from friend and foe.
Well… A room that caused momentary insanity when entered… Something that not even she was immune to, Sectonia found, though her superior magic resistance caused the stun to only last for a breath.
She’d have to find a way to destroy that thing.
But before that she had to deal with all the corrupted coming out of the room. A simple enough matter, as there was only one door for them to come through, and she had no end of AoE attacks. And at least she could ‘filter’ her attacks to not attack her maddened allies… as long as she stayed back and just peppered the doorway with her rings of light and beams of light.
The corruption, naturally, did not just sit there and take this, and being a large target as she was, the queen was the focus of more or less all of the fire being shot over the corrupted hord’s heads. Trumpets and horns sounded as Affinities fired bolts and beams from musical weapons, bow strings twanged as corrupted feather bows let loose a volley, but far worse than this were the three Enraptured holding the back of the room, each of whom unleashed a devious spell.
The first raised up its staff and flooded the room and corridor with a golden aura, that as long as it continued to project it, drove the regular troops into a berzerk state that both accelerated their movements, and made them far more durable.
The second cast out ensuring tendrils that whipped around, attempting to coil around the queen and ensare her movements.
Worst of all, however, was the third, who instead of projecting or attacking, stole, spinning its staff and draining the queen’s magic, significantly reducing her arcane firepower as long as it was able to continue to do so.
What also didn’t help was the way Edward had turned specifically on her, ignoring the angels slicing at him as he marked her the same way had when they had been fighting on the tower, aiding the aim of the enemy fire power, and then preceding to attempt to shoot her point blank with his maglock pistol.
Sectonia wasn’t surprised there was retaliation, but those three in the back were going to be a problem. Even though it’d cause her Antlers to go crazy for a bit, perhaps they’d just attack what was near them which would be those three casters and as such, Sectonia summoned a gold antler right next to the casters trying to restrain and drain her power to go berserk on them so she could continue clearing out the corruption that lay before her. Her new Death Pulse ability was doing work, with the healing and damage it provided, although it wouldn’t sustain her forever.
Unfortunately the throne’s power was more insidious than she had hoped, and the antlions promptly began attacking each other, ignoring the foes they had been summoned next to. Still, their presence did represent a threat, causing them to soak up fire as the affinities strove to take them down before they could regain their senses.
But while she had to rely on her Antler causing chaos before she could blast those things herself, Edward went crazy as well. Sectonia could only sigh as she had to summon her insight barrier to reduce the magical damage she was taking. She then turned her attention to Edward who was shooting her with his gun. Rolling her eyes she gave an internal groan about this whole ‘galeem enchantment’ business, and it seemed that even overrode her mind control
Well, at least being more of a commander type, it wasn’t too difficult to break that. She wouldn’t want him blocking her next attack to clear out the room anyway, so she simply snapped her fingers and casually threw a friend-heart at the pre-stabbed by his allies commander. With the deed done, she went back dealing with the stuff pummeling her.
The man stumbled as all the layers of control were washed away, memories and context rushing back to him. It could very well have overwhelmed him and left him as vulnerable as the stunned angels, but the screams and cries around him caused him to shunt everything to the side and focus on the battle he’d, functionally, woken up in the middle of.
The feeling of someone trying to stab an arrow into his back certainly helped, even if his armor prevented that from taking him down.
He whirled, bashed the hand of the offending feather with the butt of his gun to make the drop the arrow, before drawing his saber just in time to prevent a feather sword from taking his head off. Then he hefted his pistol at his attacker, only to fire a round over their shoulder, the enchanted slug of a bullet slamming into a corrupt equivalent that was about to stab it in the back.
”They’ll overcome it soon! Hold fast and protect the healers!” he called out, before pushing the blade of the insane feather back, and lunging to the side to shoulder barge another who was about to finish off a stunned feather-staff.
As both Edward and the offending sword recovered from the collision, the feather staff blinked behind his mask, and then shook his head clear of the stun, only to stare back at the carnage that had occurred while he’d been out. All around him, the others did as well, but as many found themselves in the middle of attempting to kill each other, insanity abating to confusion rather than order.
”Staffs, prioritize the front line! Everyone else, fall back 10 paces and form back up!” Edward commanded, rushing past the confused rear rank to join the place where the feather-shields had been desperately trying to hold back the horde even as their allies had been stabbing them in the back. Thanks to Galeem, they now all wanted to repay the favor, which Edwards' commanded tactical retreat, intended merely to clear lingering confusion about friend or foe, helped in preventing.
He thrust himself into a breach in their improvised shield wall, feet planted in the ashes of one of the fallen as he did his best to take their place despite lacking a shield of his own, and instead doing his best to parry or preemptively pistol take down his foes.
As he did, he felt overheal and holy cradle skills washed over him and the shields. The former helped some, healed the battered shields while granting the at full health Edward a protective barrier, but the second was far more important, as it gave them all a boon that would save them from one death blow… several of which were immediately used up as the wave of corrupted foes threatened to wash over them.
Well these hordes would be reduced quite a bit once Sectonia got serious and started to use her large light rings, firing 3 at a time down the hallway. In such a narrow place, these chopped through the corrupt hordes with relative ease and unlike her smaller versions, they didn’t stop until they hit the wall in the back. If it wasn’t for her mask item that tripled her projectile count, it would’ve taken way longer and way more rings to clear out the corruption in front of her. And on top of that, those mages suppressing her power would have to stop what they’re doing to dodge, or get hit with a relatively strong attack. Although the one binding Sectonia in place made an attempt to dodge, the one sapping her magic power did not, and would find these attacks still hurt even with the debuff on her due to the rapid succession of large rings.
And it was a good thing the mage binding her decided to get out of the way, as to finish off a large amount of corrupted soldiers and the one sapping her strength, she unleashed her large laser beam charged quickly due to the damage she was doing at him, overwhelming whatever defenses him and his cohort had and destroying them as well as any corruption in the way.
Though weakened (and lacking target prioritization in Edward’s tactical assessment), the sheer volume of fire and aoe was more than enough to take the pressure off the front lines, great blades slicing through weaker corrupted and softening up others enough that defenses pokes from behind their shields were plenty to take down others. The only real points of contention were the melee affinities, as each of these lesser false angels would still be a deadly foe to a mundane mortal, which made them still quite the threat to the wounded angels.
Not to mention to Edward, who had a gun rather than the shields the feathers were using to hold back the bone shattering blows of the affinities. Yet still had to do his best to hold the line, using his blade to parry earth shattering strikes he would be entirely unable to block.
His pistol's oversized slugs still punched holes though their armor at least.
It was a relief then, when a call of “Swords re-engage!” from the highest ranking of the feathers who’d survived throne induced insanity, heralding their return to the fray post regrouping behind the shield wall.
”Shields, back, swords, hold the front!” Edward commanded, keeping the relife he was feeling from his voice, as he too fell back. The swords took a more offensive approach to keeping the foes at bay, forming a loose formation and darting to and fro to take out foes quickly rather than trying to hold them back.
Still, the increased durability being induced by the final still channeling Enraptured put something of a dent in that strategy. However, now that he had space and coordinated troops, Edward could deal with that, commanding
”Bows, ready volley. On my mark” and then casting Designate Target on the foe he wished them to remove.
”Fire”A heartbeat later a shower of shots flew through the fray, Swords clearing a path thanks to the forewarning, and pincushioned the marked and vulnerable Enraptured.
The golden light it produced died along with it, bringing an end to the berzerk state it was inducing in its allies. The resulting frontline quickly crumpled, but the ranged core were still a threat, the feathers having not touched them, and Sectonia’s unwieldy shots less able to hit the distant targets.
Well, with the melee group done, Sectonia could handle the ranged corps with a teleport. She had been kept up with their group heals and her own heals and resilience, and now she could show her dominance even though she wasn’t feeling good. Summoning her chaos shield, she used this to teleport to the ranged corps with her swords out and struck them, before letting out a healing pulse and using her lightning to strike the ranged corps below. Even with them focusing her, it would take quite a bit to break her chaos shield, even though she was way out of position. That being said though, if they managed that, she’d retreat back to heal herself back up.
Edward watched on as someone else was the receiving end of Sectonia’s brazen charge without envy. Well. In a way it was still him, because the queen immediately had sycophants drop down from the ceiling to try and punish her for her brazen charge just as he’d set it up. It didn’t work, naturally, both because Sectonia was Sectonia, but also because it was hardly an ambush when they’d already run into this trick of his before, and she’d been forward of it even before then.
Unlike before however, he now casually mused about what you actually could do against someone with such abilities (decoy ranged troops on explosives, or unicorn mounted skirmishes who could teleport away perhaps) in a way that the now cleared mind control had prevented him from doing before (because how could someone loyalty to the queen even consider strategies that might counter her). Incidentally he did this theorizing while pumping maglock rifle slug after magelock rifle slug into the remaining hostiles, helping with the cleanup from a safe distance.
The last of the corrupted forces fell, leaving only the throne, and the corrupt cores nestled around it that they had come to destroy. Upon the throne sat the tome of corruption Edwad had been reading when the fight began. As Sectonia approached to complete their objective, it flipped open on its own accord, pages flipping till it revealed a diagram of a beautiful woman’s torso sat atop a lower body made up of insectile limbs and grasping tendrils labeled in arcane scrawl as an
Umbral Mistress.
The best, it seemed, it could find within itself to tempt the queen.
Prior to what many people thought, Sectonia often found the ‘insects’ that everyone thinks she’d like often pretty ugly. They tended on the realm of creepy instead of beautiful and usually they never had vibrant colors or smooth shapes but looked more like monsters. Perhaps a few other seekers would like them, but not Sectonia.
And Sectonia couldn’t let ugly things that made themselves to be her enemy stand. So instead of tempting Sectonia, the book of corruption only managed to enrage her. How dare this thing try and corrupt beauty! Well, she wasn’t going to have that, and what was the best way to deal with a book like this than with fire?
Giving a bit of an inhale, Sectonia spit a small ball of fire at the book. This was much weaker than many other seekers with the same ability, but it was more to set fire to something than an actual attack and was used to show her disdain. Something that started as her fire set the book on fire and caused the creature projected by it to morph and scream. Something Sectonia didn’t appreciate, and decided to just blast it with a beam of holy light to silence it.
”Ah, good” Edward said as he approached, pistol in hand, and explaining that
”I had intended to warn about that before we were interrupted by the illusory ploy, but it seems I didn’t need to worry about your judgment” He then glanced back at the troops and ordered
”Form a perimeter while we break the cores” before turning back to the queen and requesting
”During which I would appreciate an explanation of what exactly is going on here” ”Yes, I suppose this wouldn’t be a bad time. I need a bit of rest as it is.” Sectonia said, finding a safe spot to rest, resiphon her mana from the ground, and heal herself up. She explained what had been going on to Edward while he point blank executed the cores.
She’d want this commander for herself after all.
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