For a mont, there was a lull in the fighting, Adra was just preparing her next shot, but waiting for to add my own attack, in an attempt to overco the water-barrier. For a mont, I considered splitting the group, sending two people around the lake so Adra and I could coordinate our attacks to co from two directions at once. But it would an that Rai would have to face the shambling crawlers on his own, even with his new strength, his fighting-style was not suited for that. Still, it might be a necessary tactic.
Before the next wave of shambling crawlers got out of the water, Adra and I tried to get another attack against the bolotnisa in.
“Let your attack fly, right after my javelin hits.” I quickly told her, getting a nod in return. I took the ti to properly cast the spell, saving Astral Power by drawing all runes as fast as I could, but also adding two additional Liquid Moonlight runes, while using my Ice-Magic to coat the Javelin with it.. Hopefully, it would freeze the water used to defend, letting use it as a weapon in itself while giving Adra an opening to get a clean strike in.
My Javelin, trailing glittering dust was t with another wave, just as I had expected. The Liquid Moonlight instantly mixed with the water, turning a block of it into Ice, which I shattered, using Ice-Magic to propel the attack forward. I felt my lips curl in a smile, only to let a curse slip out when Adra’s arrow, shot right on ti to exploit the opening, was t with another wave.
“That didn’t work as planned.” I muttered, lashing out with my icy vines, giving Rai an opening to strike at one of the crawlers, while trying to co up with a good way to get the bolotnisa in the middle of her pond. Rembering the last wave of attacks, I conjured up a sheet of ice, as smooth as I could make it and rounded, hopefully allowing to block a water-jet like she had used earlier.
She wasn’t as predictable, instead of the jet, a wave of water swept towards us, breaking on the shore, forcing us all to leap back. Sadly, its effect was similar to the effect of the wisp’s green fire, it healed the shambling crawlers, luckily only those still moving, otherwise the encounter would be even worse. I kept Lenore’s eye open for another Mind Magic-Attack, but there was none. Again, Adra and I tried to get an attack past the water-waves defending her and again, we were blocked.
“They ca faster this ti!” Sigmir called out, just as she cleaved the last shambling crawler apart, making focus on the ones coming fresh out of the water. I considered to call a retreat for a mont, putting the fight off for later.
“Let’s try sothing else. Rai, with , we go around the lake. Adra, help Sigmir, once the crawlers are dead, get ready to attack. Lenore, stay here and lend your eyes, so I can attack at the sa ti.” I ordered. Lenore left her comfortable Hallow and I felt the stream of Astral Power she infused into vanish. As she landed on a branch next to Adra, I started to move, with Rai hot on my heels.
”Abandoning your friends? Oh, they will have so much fun with !” the bolotnisa taunted, cackling as we moved. This ti, two orbs of water were launched at Rai and , forcing us to tuck and roll. I felt myself gasp in pain, the earlier wound still painful, but managed to make the move and keep running. Checking what the orbs did, I made a note that getting hit by one of those would be seriously bad, the vegetation seed to die, just from getting wet.
“We are almost ready.” Lenore said, using her connection to for coordination.
“Good. We’ll get ready now.” I ssaged back, while telling Rai to stop and get ready.
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This ti, I decided to pull no punches and activated Overflow, letting as much Astral Power surge into a nine-rune formation, not a Javelin this ti but a stream of Liquid Moonlight combined with a mix of Dark Magic, using Twilight to carry a curse of magic devouring. I had no idea if it would truly work, but my plan was to retreat afterwards anyway, so getting as much information as I could was the na of the ga.
Lenore let see through her eyes and I watched Adra draw her bow, an arrow glowing with magic nocked, just as I finished the last rune. Thanks to the visual, I was able to activate the formation at the perfect ti and from two sides of the lake, magic arced out, trying to annihilate the bolotnisa. Adra’s attack, supercharged as it was, managed to get through the water-wave, albeit massively weakened, striking the monster just as my magic tore into her. A shrill scream echoed over the lake but I could see that, while the bolotnisa was bloodied, she was not dead yet.
“Let’s run.” I told Rai, just as I gripped the Shambling Crawlers with my Eisblun, chucking them into the lake with another surge of Astral Power.
At the sa ti, Lenore used my voice to tell the others to run and simultaneously, as the bolotnisa was screaming behind us and causing a massive wave of foul water to burst from her lake, we turned tail and ran away. Thanks to Lenore, who stayed with Sigmir and Adra, Rai and I could simply move in a straight line, without needing to keep track of the others. We only had to make sure that we didn’t stumble in one of the many holes and furrows. As soon as we were maybe a hundred ters away from the pond, we joined up with Sigmir and Adra again and kept running. Lenore, no longer needing to guide us, landed on my shoulder so I could use her sight without losing balance due to the shifting view-point. In addition, the extra Astral Power regeneration was sothing I needed, the fight had taken a surprising amount of power out of , especially the last spell.
While we were out of the imdiate range of the bolotnisa’s water-based attacks, I had no idea just how far the mind magic could reach or, maybe even worse, if she had so way to use the waters of the swamp to track and hunt us. With that in mind, we simply turned towards the edge of the swamp and kept running, ready to evade any shambling crawlers that might try to slow us down. I felt an attempt to call us back, using Mind Magic, but distance and our firm intent helped a great deal. For , the throbbing pain in my side might have helped focus my mind, but I wasn’t sure about that. I knew I had to push it away, at least until we got out of the swamp.
I made a ntal note, planning to go through the whole encounter, to make plans for later. Maybe I’d even release parts of it as a stream, simply to drum up so more excitent, it seed like the right thing to do. Boss-battles and dungeons were, for so rather obvious reason, sothing few people released and shared, for now, they seed to prefer hoarding the pri-information on them for their own use, maybe even to get a headstart in the official release.
A few shambling crawlers tried to stop us on our flight, but we were having none of that. I had regenerated enough Astral Power to use my Eisblun so more, using their interesting property of gaining strength with more applied Astral Power to simply toss our foes away. It was incredibly useful but the amount of power needed was just as incredible. Part of was curious if there would be a limit to their power, so far, it didn’t look like it, the more power I used and the higher my Ice-Magic got, the stronger they beca. I was still unable to replicate them, using just my magic, but it was an interesting idea I experinted with from ti to ti. So many things I wanted to learn, so many experints to try and so little ti.
Finally, we managed to step out of the misty swamp, without running into any serious problems, just a few more crawlers and the usual magic attacks, only slowing down once we were a hundred ters away from the mists.
“Why did we have to run away?” Rai asked once we were safe, sounding a little disappointed.
I tried to answer, but I felt the adrenaline fade from my system and as it went, the pain from my ribs returned with a vengeance, doubling over. I felt Sigmir's gentle arms steady , even as I heard Adra answer that we might have won the battle but it wouldn’t have been a sure thing. In the anti, I started to draw blood-runes, focusing on healing myself, ignoring everything around . Sigmir was with and would keep safe, that much I knew.
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