Getting online at the scheduled time, everyone surveyed the area before saying their greetings.
Minerva cheerfully waved. "Hi, Sol and Luna! We had a quick meeting come up last minute but she was able to do the meeting herself. Diana said that she should be on soon. In the meantime..."
Just then Diana logged in and materialized right next to us.
"Wow, that was quick sis. More business reports?"
Nodding and not wanting to go over the boring work stuff they had to do all the time, Diana was eagerly looking forward to continuing their adventure.
Normally very stern and strict, Minerva was pleasantly surprised that their assignment to monitor Reign of the Aspects had managed to allow them to connect a bit better and that even she was able to break out her shell slightly after having met Sol and Luna. Chatting with Eilyria about the ever studious Brach again, they all headed out into the forest once more to look for the last 5 Fog Guardians.
Either they ended up being incredibly lucky or unlucky, they accidentally ran into a duo patrol of Fog Guardians and were just a bit flustered at the start of the fight which ended up having Luna dying.
Without the kiting ability of Luna, they did their best to escape as fast as possible. Sol eventually managed to find a slight moment as they were running to tackle the two Fog elementals and give enough time for the two sisters to leave the aggro radius. Sol didn't manage to survive fighting the two elementals so he waited for the signal from the other two before being resurrected by Minerva and finding Luna and resurrecting her as well.
Ashamed that she was caught unawares and caused their team so much trouble, Luna bowed to Sol and the sisters. "I'm sorry for getting us killed, I should've been more aware of my surroundings." Cursing herself for becoming lax and getting caught so easily and even dying from it, Luna steeled herself again and was reminded that she couldn't become complacent despite being happy to be with her brother once again.
Knowing how frustrated and self-loathing that she would get, Sol just chuckled and hugged Luna tight and ruffled her hair. "Luna, you know better than to blame yourself so harshly for a simple mistake. I'm sure none of us here blame you at all and it isn't like we all haven't died or won't die a ton more in the future. As you said before, this isn't going to be an easy trial to do, but we're in it together and will manage to beat this trial!" Both Diana and Minerva agreed with smiles on their faces and also leaned in and hugged Luna.
Unable to hold back her tears any longer, Luna cried slightly despite the big smile on her face at the show of support which only strengthened her resolve to get better and support not only her brother but the life they now have to the very best of her ability.
Getting situated, the group once again looked for the patrol and quickly found the two guardians wandering around the forest.
Sol went in first and attracted both of the Fog Guardians. As soon as they both were about to attack, Sol activated his Aegis of Light and blocked their charging attacks which did a ton of damage but didn't end up killing him. Following up quickly, Eilyria and Minerva healed up Sol while the two archers quickly focused on one of the guardians.
Moving just out of reach of the focused guardian, Sol called out for Luna's ice tomb which not only lightened the damage that he was taking but also allowed the archers even more time to damage the guardian. Their coordinated attacks alongside the constant CC and healing allowed the group a much easier time killing the duo of guardians.
With the two new tridents, it brought their total to 7 out of 10. As soon as they picked up the 7th trident, the forest seemed to open up and a clear path towards the center of the island. Looking down the path, everyone silently agreed to follow the obvious path and were quickly greeted by a huge gate surrounding what everyone had assumed to be Brach's Shrine that they had been looking for.
"Well, that's kind of anti-climatic. So there was no way to actually find the shrine early? It only opens up after we collect a certain number of tridents? Bleh, no wonder that stupid fog forest was so maze-like."
Puffing up her cheeks, Eilyria agreed and shook her tiny fist at the forest. "Stupid forest, you were making me dizzy."
Everyone burst out laughing at Eilyria's comment which makes the little light fairy blush and hides behind Sol. Rubbing her tiny head and taking the lead, Sol walked forward and what greeted them ended up being a golden gate with what looked like ten pedestals with slots for the 10 golden tridents.
Unfortunately, in front of the pedestals were the last 3 Fog Guardians floating stock still and close to one another. Grimacing at the thought of fighting three of those guardians at once, Sol looked to Luna for guidance.
Luna thought for a moment and looked over everyone's abilities and remembered a very difficult but helpful way that would help them greatly in this situation. They were unlucky that none of the previous guardians did not drop any equipment aside from the trial items. However; even with the exp that leveled all of them to 23, they wouldn't be able to handle fighting all three guardians at once.
"Okay, Diana this is going to be a difficult trick to pull off but is the only chance I can see at us being able to kill off one of the guardians and then leave only 2 left which we can handle."
Nodding, Diana was prepared to do what she needed to finish this trial. "What do you need me to do?"
Talking with the entire group, Luna explained that while they could attempt for Sol to attract 2 of the Fog Guardians and defend as long as they could with Minerva supporting him, they didn't have enough damage and CC to kill off the 3rd guardian before either they or Sol would die. Thankfully, Luna was able to remember that there was a certain quick for Guardian type creatures specifically that they had a much shorter leash range and would come back to the location they were guarding. Most likely due to avoid groups or clans from pulling away guardians from a location and having a separate group sneak in.
However; due to this quirk, one could place a damage over time ability on one of the guardians on the side and run far enough away that the other to guardians would not leave their post. The problem was that they would need to be close enough to the guardian they tried to pull away but far enough away from the other two.
The damage over time effect of Diana's triple shot would be fantastic for measuring just the distance they would need to travel to only attract the one.
Quickly understanding the basis of the tactic, the group shifted over to the side of the shrine and slowly approached the Guardians. At a certain point, Diana was in range to attack with her triple shot and immediately cast the ability and thankfully procced her fire damage which drew the ire of all three guardians.
Running away as quickly as they could, Sol stayed just behind and noticed that the furthest Guardian had run back to the gate while the other two kept chasing. Not far behind the first, the middle Guardian also walked back.
Notifying the rest of the group, they were just a bit too far and the third guardian also floated back to the gate despite all their attempts to attack it. Diana was a bit frustrated that the leeway for the leash was so short, the group was got back together and marked the rough location that the third one had run back.
Attempting once again, they managed to single out the one guardian and all focused on killing it. Unfortunately just as the guardian was roughly half health, it suddenly ran back to the gate and they realized that the fight had shifted outside its leash range.
Third times the charm, they finally managed to single out the guardian once again and even pulled it a bit closer to the gate to kill it without it running back to the gate while also not aggroing the other guardians.
After the somewhat tedious practice in pulling and killing the one guardian separate from the other two, the group finally ran up and took care of the other two which both dropped their respective tridents.
Separating the tridents where Minerva and Diana had 2 while Sol and Luna had 3, they all placed the tridents in each of the shrine's slots and as soon as the last trident was placed, a loud grinding click sounded out. Walking back from the large gate, a crack began to form in the center and the gate pushed inward as the crack grew large enough for them to all pass through.
Opening before them all wasn't really what they expected from something called a shrine for the Aspect of Water out on a fog covered island somewhere in the ocean. Expecting to see something like a large statue depicting Brach's likeness, or an ocean-themed environment with aquatic animals or I guess elementals, hell even a pirate-based thing would have been more realistic than what they actually came to see.
Inside the shrine looked like a mad scientist's lab with bookshelves overflowing with books, papers with unrecognizable writing all over the several desks. Flasks of different colored liquids were scattered around, some dripped onto the floor while others were still bubbling through some kind of chemical reaction.
Just as confused as everyone else and expecting some kind of trap or horrible accident to happen, Luna warned everyone to stay on guard and make sure they didn't touch or step in anything that might be harmful. Spreading out, everyone in the group looked for any kind of clue or item that might prove useful to them either finding out what trial was next or what the boon from the shrine would be.
Throwing away another scrap piece of paper with not a single bit of legible writing one it, Sol chatted with Eilyria. "Elly, do you know what might be useful in this place? You said you knew Brach right?"
Holding her nose at the nasty smells coming from some of the mysterious liquids, Eilyria shook her head. "Not really, I mostly talked with Lumi, Blaze, and Flora. Noire was very silent and broody all the time, Zephyr was always off messing around, and Brach was always experimenting on something so we didn't talk much. All I remember about Brach was he was usually pretty lazy when it came to defending his shrines but would always leave some obscure clue to his experiments."
It was just then that Minerva called everyone over and showed a ripped piece of note that was actually legible that had been tucked in a book on top of a bookshelf. Wondering how she had even stumbled onto such a note, Minerva read what the note said.
~~~
Hi there An'Elari!
Sorry about the mess, this was a pretty annoying set of experiments on this island that I did to test the effect of combining wind and water elementals. Much to my expectations, fog was predominantly the elemental that was created and despite my begging, Zephyr grew bored of my experiments quickly as he usually does and I had to end my studies before doing anything of note. Anyway, I did leave a present behind for you to have if anyone managed to kill off my most successful creations, it is in the center of the room in the chest, you can't miss it.
Sincerely, Brach.
~~~
As we all looked towards the center of the room, a chest was indeed there. However; the group had already collectively looked at it and saw it was empty and assumed it was just a random empty chest. Crestfallen that their ordeal in killing all the elementals went to waste, everyone but Luna trudged out of the messy laboratory.
'That's weird, I've never heard of any shrine not having a reward at the end. While I've rarely heard about a Brach shrine before, I don't remember anything like this happens before.' Luna walked with the rest of the group and heard Sol shout out in shock.
Rushing outside, Luna and the rest of the group were confronted with a bloated looking figure who they had completely forgotten about.