Rn'd Golnor
He stepped forwards, as he did, the floor and the whole room around him suddenly dropped in temperature, frost spreading across the floor and walls at a frightening pace, the breath in everyone's mouths became vapours in the air. Rn'd sidestepped and a wave of massive ice crystals ripped past him, straight towards the mage.
The woman suddenly leapt into the air, then flew in a graceful arc above the glacier tearing towards her. Instead it impacted the wall and froze the whole section in a thick layer of ice.
"Rn'd!" Helena shouted, pointing to the woman who was flickering with violet arcane energy. A witch. The witch then threw a bolt of purple electricity at Rn'd, it took him square in the chest, sending him into one of the benches.
Brim leapt into action at that point, retrieving his axe from his back and rushing the witch. He was about to swing down when his own shadow seemed to seep up onto his legs and throw him through the wall next to him with its black tendrils.
At that point Helena unleashed another spell, sending a ball of flame streaking towards the witch, again she nimbly dodged the spell, which exploded on the wall, opening the room up a second time to outside. Rn'd drew and lit his sword with white-hot flames, searching for the witch. Brim leapt back into the room, axe drawn and blood over his enraged brow. Rn'd held up his hand, signalling for everyone to stop, none of them had seen where the witch had gone since the explosion.
Something caught Rn'd in the back of the leg. Looking down, it was a tendril of black liquid. The tendril pulled out and Rn'd dropped to one knee as the witch dropped from a shadow in the ceiling, unleashing purple lightening over the whole room, again Rn'd was blown back, along with the rest of his group.
He looked across at Helena who had fallen against a table and been knocked unconscious, and Brim who was crawling over to Helena to feed her a healing potion.
Black tendrils crept across the ground, flowing from the witch who stood atop the main desk, Rn'd and Brim tried to fight off the tendrils but couldn't manage it and were eventually bound, with Helena, in these pitch black vines.
The witch stepped down off of the desk, walking on stairs seemingly made from shadow. She strode across the floor with the graceful steps of someone who had extremely high agility.
'That explains why she could dodge Helena's spells.' Rn'd thought.
She waved her hand and the three adventurers were lifted off of the ground by the darkness.
"You cannot see the details of an adventurer unless they have explicitly stated otherwise." The witch's smile was still warm. "Now, come back when you have his name and permission to do so." With that, the witch flung each of them outside, out into the light and warmth. The building, by contrast, was bathed in shadow and had vapour slowly cascading down the sides.
--
Yolen Arcanum
"Look, we're about to go into the boss room. I want you to know that if anything happens to me, I've always loved you." Fulcrum snuggled into the mane of the ice lion he had summoned alongside his greater water elemental and his ice golem.
"You done yet?" I asked the now level 63 sorcerer.
"Almost." He grinned, peeling himself away from his massive lion. I had been absorbing mana steadily for the past five or so minutes, I was positive that I'd not be able to exhaust my absorbed mana in my arcane form for the next month if I used it continuously.
I turned to the entrance to the boss chamber, it was a waterfall of lava blocking our path and view. But I was confident of it being the boss room as I had snuck in there using the arcane form and inspected the room. It was a magma filled expanse with a large mound of molten rock that was cooling and heating perpetually, that same mound had a large amount of mana being drawn into it, so it was the boss.
"No rush." I waved my hand lazily, still thinking about the raid so far.
Fulcrum had leveled up over twenty times in the raid. I had, by contrast, leveled only four times. Even though my max MP had hit one billion, I still didn't feel as fulfilled as I had been before I ascended, the difference in leveling after ascending was substantial, there was a slight difference in every level prior but the gap had skyrocketed.
I looked down at my hands, one covered in a gauntlet from my second dungeon. I removed the gauntlet and looked at my stats, they hadn't changed. I didn't know if it was a side effect of my job or if everyone had that effect. All I knew was that my gear sure did look cool and so I placed the gauntlet back on.
"Ready now?" I turned and asked Fulcrum who was stroking his lion now instead of hugging it, turned out this guy had a soft side for his summons.
"Sure am." He patted the lion hand walked over to me. "What's the plan then? Go in there, freeze it and smash it?"
"Good plan, we'll go with that."
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"I was just gunna wing it but freezing and smashing sounds good."
"Alright, lets do this." Fulcrum walked towards the lava wall and stopped. "Erm?" He pointed towards the wall. I nodded and then held out a hand, creating a barrier around the lava fall, halting it's flow, then I lifted it up, moving it out of Fulcrum and his summons ways. We all walked through, gazing up at the large mound of lava and rock that was fading in and out of liquid and solid forms. As soon as we were all in, I dropped the field, closing off our exit.
We both stood, poised to fight. Nothing happened, even though I could clearly see the mana moving towards the boss.
"You sure this is th-" as Fulcrum was speaking, the mound of molten rock started moving, and then raised up high. A plume of ash filled the room, a dull red glow rising from its center.
Having lost sight of Fulcrum and the boss, I brought a small amount of mana in my fingers and snapped them, a burst of air echoed outwards, clearing the ash from the chamber.
Fulcrum was in his prior place, staring up at the lava monster. A thick sheet of partially frozen rock lay over a thin figure about 60ft in height, scraping it's head against the roof. A molten glow came from every inch of it not covered in the black sheet, almost like a cloak.
It's 'head' turned towards Fulcrum and myself, then a skeletal hand made from liquid rock swung swiftly through the air with awesome speed. I unleashed a massive portion of mana, slowing time to a halt, I forgot to hide the glow and so arcs of purple energy flared off of my radiant blue form. I leapt towards the hand as it was frozen in the air, about to strike Fulcrum. The ground from where I leapt shattered instantly, freezing in place with the halted time. I landed with tremendous force on the palm of the hand, I saw the ripple of the impact move across the hand and felt it gradually pushing away from me. I willed myself to land on the floor next to Fulcrum, concealing the mana's effects. Time resumed and the hand was blown back, torn apart by the immense impact.
I turned to Fulcrum, "Freeze it still?"
"Yep." He pointed at the massive figure and his summons leapt into action. One thing about summons, their health was determined by the caster, if the caster had extra mana to spare then those summons could regenerate to a point. If I kept feeding Fulcrum mana then they could regenerate endlessly.
The ice lion and golem unleashed two powerful plumes of cold energy that froze great sections of the boss, but it wasn't enough, the hand that had been destroyed had reformed from the molten rock surrounding the platform on which we stood. That same hand came crashing down on the water elemental, who was blasting streams of cold water into the form of the boss, it got completely crushed by a rapidly cooling hand, water spilling across the floor and lava, cooling it down. However, as the hand was lifting up, something went with it, a small mound of water that was gathering a large amount together, the elemental was regenerating.