The knight was the only figure still standing. Drew watched as the second wave of projectiles smashed its helmet to pieces, the knight's body dissolving in a manner similar to how it had appeared. He poked a finger over the top of the barrier and launched a blind frostfire ball in the same general direction he had heard them coming from before.
"Can you make part of the wall glass?" Drew asked Katie as more barrages fell around them.
"I can try," Katie said, concentrating on the wall in front of them. Drew threw another glowrock from his pocket over the wall, hoping to distract the attackers. As he did this, the wall in front of him added a foot-tall section of glass to its height.
"Perfect." Drew said, popping his head up a little so he could get a look at whatever was attacking them. It was difficult to make them out through the thick, cloudy glass, but he guessed there were seven or eight figures standing back a few dozen feet away from where they had emerged from the branching hallways.
"Katie, put up a wall behind us, I don't want to get flanked," Drew said, glancing behind him. They couldn't have known about the walls, but any good ambush would have them defending against multiple avenues of attack.
The brunette glanced back as well, chanting a quick spell to create another long wall, this one slightly taller than the one in front of them. "Got it," she said, before ducking reflexively as another clatter hit the wall behind her and shattered, showering them with slow-moving shrapnel. Drew glanced down the line. Juan was poking his fingers over the wall and launching projectiles blind, not doing much, but hopefully, it reduced the number of projectiles coming their way. Sarah was curled up with her hands over her ears leaning against the half wall, and Mitch crouched next to her, axe in hand, unable to attack anything.
Drew peeked his head up again and began the hand signs to cast a storm spell. However, a projectile cracking the glass in front of his face caused him to duck down reflexively, losing the cast.
Pinned down, Drew poked his fingers over the wall and cast fireball and frostfire ball towards the larger group he had seen. The rate of fire slowed for only a second before the glass above him shattered as two projectiles hit it at the same time.
Glass bounced off his mana guard harmlessly, but Katie, who was next to him, wasn't so lucky. Sharp bits of glass embedded themselves in the exposed flesh of her neck and face as she cried out in pain. "Sarah, heal Katie!" Drew shouted, covering her with his body to prevent any further damage as projectiles rained down on the pinned down group.
Mitch shouted back, "She's in shock, we need to stop that barrage!" Drew glanced back and saw that Sarah was still curled up in a ball. Cursing under his breath, he popped up long enough to target an acid dart at one of the attackers. A shout of alarm originated from where he had aimed, but Drew had already ducked back behind cover. His quick, long-range options were all on cooldown for a few more seconds. He pulled Katie away from the glass section of the wall towards the outer edge and away from the rest of the group.
As Drew rapidly considered his options, Juan launched his attacks, which elicited another grunt of pain from the attackers. "Mitch, get ready, this would be a great time for them to charge the barricade." Drew poked his finger up and launched a cone of frost blindly towards the floor, hoping to dissuade them from making a charge by creating slippery terrain. With the enemies' numbers, they would easily overpower the group if they got into melee.
Having finally made his way to the end of the wall, he glanced around it. He saw three figures dashing toward him and another finger came up, cone of frostfire exploded out, catching all three of them in its blast. They immediately dropped their weapons, screaming in pain as ice encrusted their flesh and began to burn them. Beginning the cast of a storm spell, he leaned out at the last second, launching his most deadly spell at the ranged attackers that continued to pelt the wall behind them, showering them with shrapnel and filling the ground between the walls with sharp pieces of what looked like bone.
He watched as the spell tore the remaining attackers to pieces, their projectiles stopped by the wind and then turned into additional debris. Their lack of cover from the large chunks of ice and fire that circled within the storm was devastating. Lightning crackled in the tempest, bouncing between their forms.
Drew looked away from the doomed attackers and back down the line. Katie and Sarah were now both huddled against the wall and Juan lay on the floor, red blood pooling around his body. Another unfamiliar green humanoid was lying next to him, an axe buried in its chest. Mitch was repeatedly punching a second, unresisting, green humanoid. "SARAH! Cast heal now!" They were all within her radius. Drew dove towards Juan, heedless of the sharp bits digging into his legs as he knelt beside the youngest member of their group.
The source of the blood was obvious: a thick dagger protruding from his chest. His eyes were lifeless as Drew checked for a pulse, shouting Juan's name over and over. He felt the air change as the storm spell dissipated, and when he looked up and Sarah was staring at him and Juan with wide eyes, her lips moving silently.
"Sarah! Cast the fucking cure!" Drew cursed at her again, "Now!" He added, making eye contact. He could see her shake out of the shock she had been in and begin to cast the spell, yellow light illuminating Drew, Mitch, and Katie. Drew looked over towards Mitch, who had finally stopped punching the dead attacker. He slumped away from Juan, his hands bloody.
The fight was over, blue boxes in the corner of his vision indicating that the mana system had good news for him. He numbly concentrated on it, pulling up the notifications.
Congratulations, citizen. Your Acid Dart has reached level 1. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, citizen. Your Acid Dart has reached level 2. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, citizen. Your Acid Dart has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, citizen. Your Major Mana Guard has reached level 2. Amount of damage absorbed has increased.
Congratulations, citizen. Your Major Refresh has reached level 2. Recharge time has been reduced.
Congratulations, citizen. Your Major Spark has reached level 2. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, citizen. Your Major Spark has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, citizen. Your Minor Dancing Blade has reached level 1.
Drew dismissed the screen, standing up to survey the battlefield. He slipped on the blood and had to put a hand on the wall for support. The enemies caught by the storm were destroyed; he could see portions of them in various locations throughout the hallway.
Mitch approached him, "they jumped the wall behind us. They killed Juan before I realized what was going on." Drew glanced down at the bodies, studying Juan's killer.
Thick green skin covered a squat, thickly muscled frame. It looked like the typical Orcs from any game he had played, except for the two, inch long horns protruding from either side of its forehead. Thick pelts covered most of their bodies, a crude form of armor that looked more suited to a cold climate than DC in April. Drew kicked the body a couple of times, spouting nonsensical curse words in half a dozen languages.
Katie finally stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder as she spoke softly, "Drew, we can't stay here."
She was right, they were exposed. He looked around, only to see that Sarah was crying into Mitch's shoulder as she watched them both. "Right. Grab the weapons, see if any of them are growing xatherite." He reached down and picked up another dagger that lay near where he had cast the storm spell, this one smaller and thinner, made for throwing. It was only then that he realized that his mana guard was gone, having saved his life from the dagger that he never even knew had targeted him. Sarah sniffed a few times, then picked up the dagger that the Orc Mitch had brutalized had been using. Mitch recovered the axe, Katie picked up the half dozen lights that had been spread around during the fight and searched for xatherite, shaking her head when she came back to indicate she hadn't seen any.
Drew glanced at Juan's body. It would be nearly impossible to bring with them. "Katie, can you make walls around Juan? We're gonna have to leave him here." Katie nodded, causing two small walls to appear near his head and foot, with two more sloped walls that met in a point above his chest, sealing the body inside.
"Alright, let's go, there could be more of those things around." Drew turned to leave, but Katie put another hand on his shoulder. He turned to look at her and she nodded towards Sarah, "We should say something."
"Right." He glanced at the others. He had known Juan the least of all of them. They had worked with him for months at least.
Sarah spoke first, "I'm sorry Juan, I'm so sorry." She began crying again, and Mitch put his arm around her to comfort her.
"You were a good shipmate, always going above and beyond to make everyone happy," Mitch offered from where he comforted the Ensign.
"You were a good kid, like OS2 said, always willing to help people and eager to learn." Katie offered her portion and then turned to Drew.
"I didn't know you for long, and I'm sorry I didn't protect you like I said I would. Looks like you'll figure that God thing out before me." Then he nodded and they all turned away from the bodies, leaving the orcs for whatever spiders or other scavengers came for them. No one had the heart to wade into the scattered body parts torn apart by the storm spell to look for their weapons.
Drew did take a last glance around. The ambush felt off to him somehow. It was executed perfectly, and the pincer attack would have killed them all if it weren't for Katie's wall spell. The question he had was, why? Was it because of his first storm spell? The only words that he had heard were 'kill the red mages.' Was that just good practice, or a response to the spells he'd cast? He frowned again, looking at the others, "We should use a different stairwell." He ushered everyone to a branching hallway and away from the main elevators. Grabbing the rope for the cart, he pulled it behind him, the wheels bouncing over the bone shards that littered the floor.
The building was organized strangely, built into the side of a hill. The 'ground floor' was the highest floor, and they counted going down from there. They were currently on the third floor but going up meant being on top of the hill with more buildings surrounding them and no real way off the hill. There were exits on floors five, six, and seven that opened onto the parking structure and the road off base. The closest exit was on the sixth floor. The fifth- and seventh-floor exits would require traveling through the building either more to the west or east, as they exited on the slope of the hill. This was the main stairwell and allowed access to all nine floors of the building. The problem was that it was the only stairwell that went all the way up and down, and the rest of them only spanned three to four floors each.
They were currently headed towards the stairwell that would probably get them to the fifth floor. The problem was that Drew couldn't remember if it went down all the way to the fifth floor, or if it only went to the fourth floor. Sarah was a mess, the knight was gone and on cooldown, the cart had been damaged by some of the stray projectiles, and Juan was dead.
He pushed that thought away, "Katie, can you make walls behind us? Block off pursuit?" She looked up at him and nodded.
"Oh yeah, good idea." Her short chant created a 6-foot-tall barrier. It would take another casting to fully close the area off, so they waited the slow seconds before she could cast it again and then moved on, stopping three more times for Katie to erect barriers behind them.
They took a 90-degree turn in the hallway and Drew nodded Mitch towards the little breakroom on the side. "Let's hole up there for a bit. We can raid the vending machine and get some rest." Drew could keep them all awake forever with his refresh spell, but all of them needed some time to process Juan's death. Katie erected a few more walls as they all entered the break room. They hadn't seen any monsters since the Ambush. The air smelled stale with no wind or ventilation present to push fresh air in.
Sarah was curled up in one of the corners and Drew opted to give her as much space as possible. Abandoning the cart in the middle of the room, he sat in the opposite corner which also gave him a good line of sight on the entryway. Katie sat down next to him, leaning against his shoulder. A part of Drew's mind told him that the contact should be weird; they had only known each other for a short time, after all. Instead, the comforting warmth on his shoulder reminded him of Zoey, and he slung his arm around Katie and pulled her closer.
"Well, that sucked." She said softly.