timewalk

  Aliandra

  Ali stared at the wobbling mass hauling itself out of the nature-affinity spawning pool.

  Toxic Spitter – Ooze – level 55 (Poison)

  It was by far the rgest ooze Ali had ever seen – just as vile as her Toxic Slimes – only it was almost half the size of the Forest Guardian. With heavy, mushy sptting thumps, it dragged its wobbly bulk up the bank, green liquid from the pool casg off its stantly ging form with a powerful formation of poison-affinity mana swirling within its enormous body. It lurched in a motion remi of a cat throwing up a hairball, which struck Ali as odd because, if anything could be said to look opposite a cat, that creature was it. A ball of greenish-brown sludge shot out from the Spitter and smmed into Mato, tg onto him.

  Toxic Slime – Ooze – level 8 (Poison)

  The Toxic Spitter lurched again and shot out three more creatures with a rapid spt, spt, spt.

  “Did it just summon slimes?” Ali asked, incredulously.

  “Looks like it. We o finish off these Bamboo Crawlers fast,” said, breaking through her distra.

  “Right.” I o focus. Malika and Mato take care of themselves for a moment. Ali picked three Bamboo Crawlers and split her Are Bolt magic, shooting all three of them simultaneously. unleashed his Righteous Fury in an effort to burn through the monsters as quickly as possible.

  “Fireball,” Ali anded, and her mages began to bst the bamboo forest apart.

  When Ali finally returo the melee, she found a se of pure ore than three or four dozen little slime creatures were mobbing Mato and Malika and her own melee monsters. The giant Toxic Spitter sprayed out five more in quick succession, visibly shrinking as it did so, but its form seemed to swell rapidly, regaining its inal bulk in moments.

  “Is it healing what it spat out?” she asked aloud. She couldn’t tell exactly what was going on in the chaotic ana, but the giant ooze shrank whe spat out a Toxic Slime. Shortly after, the monster regrew. What is… fuck! “The Forest Guardian is healing it!”

  “Crap,” said.

  “Ali, fireball the slimes, we’re getting overwhelmed by poisons!” Malika shouted, her voice crag with urgency as she pummeled dozens of Toxic Slimes while struggling tinuously to free herself from the ever-grasping roots.

  Ali didn’t have to be asked twice. Without much ado, she set up the familiar fireball rotation, staggering the mages’ spells carefully to give enough time to heal betweeonations.

  The first Fireball nded with a deafening bang. Fming bits of toxic goop sizzled through the air leaving trails of smoke, a spttering rain of fire that g to whatever it hit. Roots caught fire and the Forest Guardians roared in ahe sed Fireball flew, nding right after the healing magic of the Acolytes topped up Mato. Dense bck smoke began to billow up out of the battlefield as the explosion intensified the fmes. Several pieces of goop sptted up against Ali’s barrier, ging like glue. She coughed as the foul stench of burning slime assaulted her senses, so potent that it made her eyes water.

  But the situation otlefield seemed unged. Several Toxic Slimes had been blown to pieces by the force of the bsts, but most of them shrugged off the fire, shedding burnt slime as if it were dirty clothing, appearing to simply regee the damage. A few seds ter, the enormous Toxic Spitter horked up another volley of new slimes to repce the few Ali had killed.

  “It’s not w!” The fireballs were powerful, but she was effectively trying to burn a huge pile of wet sludge the sistency of thick mud, and fire was certainly not ideal for that. Withient regeion aura of the Forest Guardian, the slimes were simply rec their health and tinuing unharmed. In fact, her fireballs seemed to be doing vastly more damage to her friends instead.

  “The poison is killing us! Mato is getting very hard to heal,” Malika yelled.

  “The guardian is healing everything!” Ali yelled back. Mato and Malika were certainly in dire straits, but Ali had no idea what she could do. Should we run?

  “We have to kill the guardian first,” said.

  “We ’t survive that long!” Malika shouted back.

  As the urgent exge went bad forth, Ali’s attention was suddenly drawn to the Toxic Spitter and the powerful surge of mana that rippled through its enormous body. The wobbly, muddy goop shivered, pulsing with power, and then stretched in opposite dires. Her eyes widened in realization. The ter of the ooze monster was stricted, pulled by opposing forces until suddenly it split, causing ripples to ricochet bad forth through the two remaining halves.

  Toxic Spitter – Ooze – level 55 (Poison) x2

  Shit! It took a moment for Ali to realize what had happened, and then chilling implications smmed into her mind with the power of certainty and doom. “There’s two of them!” she yelled. They were in trouble before, but the Toxic Spitter had just split itself into two halves – two entirely separate monsters half the size of the inal. Then they began to swell and grow, fed by the potent regeion aura pumped out by the Forest Guardian.

  “We o run!” Malika yelled.

  “We’ll just die in the locus room,” shouted. “We o deal with the poison!”

  “I need a minute. you hold out for that long?” Ali yelled. As soon as the two halves reached their full size, they would be spitting new slimes at twice the rate, and her friends were going to be overwhelmed.

  “It’d better be something good!” Malika yelled back, the strain of fighting against the roots while kig, pung, and healing clear in her voice.

  With haste born ency, Ali rushed through her priority list. She made her Storm Shaman drop his Lightning Nova totem in the middle of the slime pit. At least lightning seemed to work much better than fire against what was effectively animated sludge, and it seemed easier to heal her friends through the nova than fireballs. , she called her Scalding Slimes off from attag the guardian ahem to thinning the horde of smaller toxic slimes with their steam jets. Her slimes seemed immuo the stag poison effects, so they were not drawing much of her Acolytes’ healing power. Then she switched her Fire Mages to firebolts, instrug them to shoot the Toxic Spitters in the hopes that the damage would slow down their healing and sequentially, the rate at which they could manufacture more slimes.

  She swooped in closer, choosing a ft spot on the beach, and pivoted her barrier to protect herself while she cleared her mind to focus on her Runic Script skill. This had better work. She had never created a circle in under a minute and everything relied on her getting it right first try. She took a deep breath and dismissed her worries, fog instead on her memory of the Cure Poison circle. She k in the dirt and began to write, eling her mana like ink into the retively smooth sand.

  There was yelling and shouting in the background, but she tu out, fog on keeping her mana flow perfectly stant, increasing and decreasing the pressure as she worked her way through the plex runic structure. About halfway through, one of her Acolytes burst into intense light, radiant holy magic shining out like a bea of hope. She ig, fog on the ricky se. No mistakes. She couldn’t afford the time to go bad fix it. Her mana snapped, and her miered the loss of her shaman. She pushed the information into the background, trating on the rune sequence, filling it in as quickly as she dared. It reme bang act, a trade between her desire to rush and save her friends, and her experiehat slow and deliberate work would result in fewer mistakes.

  The sed Acolyte fred with intense magic, followed immediately by ’s powerful radiant skill igniting his mana. They’re struggling. She k, could feel it, and she pushed her frustration that she couldn’t help down into the recesses of her mind. I am helping! Her circle was much wider than she had attempted in the past, and that decision had cost her time, but she was closing in o ard she would need full focus to link it. And the size is necessary if I want to save them both.

  There was a tactile snappiion in her mana as the circle closed.

  Cure Poison – level 31 (Nature)Weakens or removes poison.Runic Circle

  Your reserved mana has increased by +177.

  “Mato! Poison circle here!” Ali yelled out as soon as she firmed the notification and the successful pletion of her spell.

  Mato roared in firmation, but although he was strong enough to tear the roots, more and more kept tangling with his paws, preventing all but the slowest progress through the rampant growth.

  The third Acolyte triggered her potent healing enha, fring brilliantly in Ali’s mana sight, a visual reminder of how dire the situation was. There were no more enhas after this one, and it sted thirty seds at most. When it ehey would be at the mercy of the poison and whatever normal healing they could manage.

  “He’s not going to make it,” said, his voinaturally calm.

  Mato had mao move the Forest Guardian no more than two or three meters.

  I have to risk it.

  “Fireball!” Ali yelled, sending the and thest-level mage, aing it in on to give her friends the necessary warning to prepare. Malika’s eyes widened, but she just shifted, pnting herself right beside Mato. Blue-white mana pulsed through her and into Mato moments before the intense ball of fme sizzled out across the bead smmed into the fnk of the Forest Guardian. The cussion was deafening, and the spts of the pieces of shredded slime could be felt more than heard, but Ali wasn’t ied in that, her eyes entirely focused on the roots and vines sprouting from the grouh the giant pilr of smoke and fme.

  Seared and torn by the explosion, the roots momentarily released their hold, and Mato responded instantly. His charge took him past the boundary of the magiic circle, tearing across the beach to where Ali was standing. In an almost instantaneous rea, first the enemy Forest Guardian, and then her own triggered their Rush skills, chasing the Bear in a thunderous pursuit.

  Ali’s eyes widened, stunned by the sight of mountains of monstrous wood bearing down on her with magically accelerated speed. With barely a thought, she triggered Minion Teleport, switg pces with one of her Fire Mages, and scrambling backward to create more distance. Only then did she realize that she could ill afford to lose her mage either, and summoned a barrier underh it, shooting it above the battlefield – a precaution she should probably have taken the instant she pleted her circle.

  Toxic Slimes flew outward in an explosion of slime tossed in all dires by the barreling charges of the three enormous beings – the bear, followed by the two guardians. The etlefield of slime, and the now three Toxic Spitters, shifted and crawled in a grotesque writhing, wobbliion to the ging battle, shifting as one, and bearing down on Mato as he finally arrived in the circle and wheeled about to face the monsters.

  Mato Mato roared, taunting the sea of slimes to attack him.

  You have gained Battle Trance.Your Poison has increased to 1898.Your Poison has increased to 1901 (+3).You have gained Battle Trance.Your Poison has increased to 1903 (+2).You have gained Battle Trance.…

  The notifications chimed tinuously in the background, a frantic dirge that heralded his immi death. Individually, the poisons were hardly worth thinking about, so low-level that he could quite easily ighem. Ofteright resisted the damage. But there were so many stacked up now that his health was in a precipitous freefall, held up by the lifelihat was the rapid and tinuous healing from the Kobold Acolytes and Malika fighting beside him.

  He Swiped again, feeding his mana into Brutal Restoration. He dared not add his Bestial bat, though – his health situation was way too precarious to spend that much of it to increase his damage. But therein y the problem – without the extra damage, he was suffering with much-reduced healing from his own magic, serving only to pound the problem.

  His paw Swiped through the sea of slimes, slowing only on tact with the heavily armored Forest Guardian. Slimes fleulted out over the battlefield by the power of his strike, but there were so many more crawling in to take their pce. The wall of slimes surrounding him was several deep, threatening to e him entirely.

  Ali better be doing something amazing, or we’re done for.

  A sudden potent surge in the power of the ining healing magic told him that the sed Kobold had used its emergency healing enha. He was intimately familiar with the skill, knowily how long it would st, and precisely how much faster the heals would nd. He Swiped again, this time riskiial bat, trusting in the power of the Kobold’s magic. The health was torn away, fueling a much more powerful strike, making his life dip terrifyingly quickly, but the Kobold’s healing spell was right on time.

  He killed several of the small Toxic Slimes ht, shredded by his empowered strike, and Malika was right there to take care of those which survived. But for the ohat were catapulted out into the battlefield, they would simply return, already healed by the guardian’s aura.

  “Mato! Poison circle here!” Ali yelled.

  Oh, Ali! You’re a fug genius. I could hug yht now! He let out a thunderous roar to tell her he had heard and strained against the roots binding him to the ground, ripping them to shreds. He flexed, tearing vines up from the sandy beach as he moved, dragging the guardian with him, but before he had taken more than even a siep, the roots were twisting and grasping, dragging him to a halt. He swiped again, clearing a few slimes out of his way, and ripped at the roots to take aep all the while trying to ighe tinuous chiming of new poison notifications.

  The healing quied, and Mato khat the final Kobold had resorted to emergency measures to keep him alive.

  Fuck, it’s too far. I have to… mive it more!

  The accelerated healing would st no more than thirty seds, provided the little Kobold had mana, and he was fighting for every step – Ali seeming unreachable, an infinite distance away.

  “Fireball!” Ali yelled.

  Oh, shit! Not that kind of more! His health spiraled doidly, and he was helpless to do anything about it, entirely at the mercy of the healers, and the timing of what would be a powerful explosion. He heard the sizzling flight of the magic ball of fire, and in the instant before it struck, he felt the twin surge of magic – holy and soul – oly caressing, and the other tearing through his body in a dramatitrast of healing, leaving him momentarily full, right as the fireball exploded.

  Guided by Survival Instinct, he closed his eyes just in time for the explosion, and his nostrils were filled with the stench of seared slime and his own scorched fur, while his flesh crisped and burnt in an instant, his body buffeted by the enormous detonation. Ugh.

  But he sehe instant the roots weakened, burned and shattered by the potent magic. He wheeled on his hind paws, heedless of the massive Forest Guardian, and charged, accelerating rapidly across the scorched beach toward Ali. In a fra of a sed, his body cleared the boundary of the aura of pnt growth, and he tinued running as fast as he was able to where she marked the runic circle with her body.

  Run, Ali! Frantically, he roared at her. From behind him, he could already feel the ground-shaking charge as the guardians immediately gave pursuit, and for a moment he realized Ali was staring at him in shock. But before he reached her, she suddenly vanished, repced by a Kobold blinking in surprise. Less than a sed ter, a golden barrier appeared beh the Kobold and tossed him into the air.

  Mato skidded to a halt oherwise unremarkable stretch of beach where Ali had been standing.

  Am I…? His half-formed question was interrupted by a sudden burst of notifications firming that he was indeed in the right spot.

  Poison removed. x3Poison removed. x8Poison removed. x4…

  The notifications began chiming in quick succession, all removals, surprising him with the speed and quantity. I do have a lot of poison. And he suddenly recalled that antidotes were more effective if they were much higher level than the poisons they were removing.

  While the two guardians were almost on top of him, the slimes were far slower and would take a bit loo reach him. A nice breather, he decided as the poison removal chimes tinued unabated. He set himself, l his ter of gravity and brag his paws, and unleashed his most potent Challenging Roar – perhaps more to bolster his own ce than for its Taunt effect – accepting the charge of the massive Forest Guardian with a shoulder block before he shed out with a Swipe. He felt the regeion aura boosting his own as Ali’s guardian crashed into the back of the wild one, and the annoying roots began grappling with him once more.

  But his health was stabilizing quickly, being greatly from the window of time he had created by charging away from the slimes.

  “Mato’s health is stabilizing, let’s kill the guardian quickly,” Malika shouted.

  “On it,” answered.

  A volley of golden Are Bolts whizzed by his ear, smming into the Forest Guardian’s chest and shoulders.

  In the few moments that remained o Kobold’s holy enha, Mato spent his health to power his attack. His cws struck, shredding through the armor ptes, leaving great tears through the bark and deep into the wood below, spraying sap into the air from the force of the strike. His Brutal Restoration pulsed powerfully, adding to the healing that was finally stabilizing his health against the still huge, but quickly redug poison damage. The jagged gashes in the bark armor would be easy for Malika and to exploit. Aoo, he thought, p a sed strike as the slimes finally began to reach his new position. I’ll beat you into kindling, you rown tree!

  “The ooze is splitting again!” Ali called out.

  “Ig, the guardian is the key,” answered.

  Mato simply roared, taunting all the monsters around him, reminding them that he was the target of their fury. He used it often, making sure none of the newly spawned oozes would wander off and attack the healers. It cost a lot of stamina to use it that way, but if there was ohing he wasn’t short of in this fight, it would be stamina – Battle Trance had never once dropped below five stacks sihe oozes began attag.

  “My Acolytes need mana. Malika, you cover Mato?”

  “No problem,” Malika yelled. “I have more stamina than I know what to do with.”

  Inwardly, Mato chuckled, recalling that his Battle Trance boosted the regeion aura he was sharing with Malika.

  His friends tio shout bad forth, coordinating the diverse aspects of the fight that he wasn’t involved in. He did sehe ge in the healer rotation, though. The female Kobold Acolyte’s magic was withdrawn, easily identified by the distinctive power and ce to her spells. She was the highest-level Acolyte Ali had made, and Mato had e to rely on the precision of her spells. But everyone needed mana. Except for her, he corrected, feeling the burn of Malika’s inexhaustible healing magic repce the Kobold Acolyte’s efforts.

  He hunkered down, mostly ign the walls of oozes trying to overwhelm him, relying on the colteral area damage of his Swipe skill to take care of them, instead focused on making sure he kept at least two to three Living Rends on the guardian at all times. Now that the poison wasn’t running rampant and out of trol, he could afford the health cost to ehey could effitly damage the monster. It was still challenging, and he was still timing the health cost by predig the healers’ spells, but he was getting so much more familiar with that.

  After what seemed like an age, he Swiped another fully empowered attack, and the guardian trembled, colpsing to one knee, and then suddenly gave out with a crash that bounced most of the Toxic Slimes into the air for a moment.

  Mato roared, letting his frustration thunder up and out through his vibrating throat. The roots subsided as the giant monster died and he finally turned his attention to the enormous horde of slime monsters, swiping furiously with both forepaws. There were an unbelievable number of them, but on the sed strike, Mato immediately felt the difference.

  They’re dying now. Instead of his Swipes being healed between strikes, the slime monsters remained damaged, dying to a subsequent strike, colpsing in droves as his much higher-level attack skills tore them to shreds.

  And after several minutes, he could tell that the horde was visibly thinning. Beyond the walls of slime monsters, the Toxic Spitters were still spitting up new monsters, but while there were now five of them, the rate at which they were ing out slimes had slowed to a crawl.

  No more healing aura for you, boys. He grinned a toothy grin as he firmed what he had suspected for most of the fight. was right, the Guardian was the key. It was a slog, and while he was no longer pio the ground, Mato resolutely refused to budge from his poison-g runic circle. He had no idea if he could ever find it again uhe sludge and goop if he moved.

  He leaned into his attacks, ign the burning of his overused muscles. It ain that would quickly be taken care of by his rapidly regeing stamina, and he was eager to get through the remaining oozes.

  Surprisingly, it took less time than he expected to clear the Toxic Slimes – the low-level monsters died far more rapidly without the support of the regeion aura. Ali even began tossing in the occasional Fireball to thin the ranks. By the time the st one was dead, all the giant Toxic Spitters were smming him with their pseudopods, no longer able to spawn new slimes. A few minutes of focused fire ter, they too spttered to the ground, punctured, and popped, dumping their foul-smelling goop everywhere.

  He wrinkled his nose, remaining in the circle to wait for it to finish sing him of the remaining poisons. He was tired and drenched, and he smelled like burnt slime. He shook his body, causing slime juice to fly off his fur in all dires.

  “Hey, stop that!” Malika excimed, holding up her hands to block the flying slime. She may as well have been trying to stop a rainstorm with her fingers, her hair stered to her head, and everything was wet and covered in gobs of slime. “Seriously, Mato?”

  He dropped his Bear Form, switg back to Beastkin so that he could have a chuckle at Malika’s expense, but his transformation magic did nothing to the goop from his body, and he found himself equally bedraggled.

  Fuck it, he thought and plopped himself down on the ground with a wet spt and opened his notifications.

  Yroup has defeated Bamboo Crawler – Grass – level 23-31 x6.Yroup has defeated Forest Guardian – Wood Elemental – level 53.Yroup has defeated Toxic Spitter – Ooze – level 55 x5.Yroup has defeated Toxic Slime – Ooze – level 1-12 x3017

  Druidic Shapeshifter has reached level 38 (+2).+20 attribute points.

  Arboreal Sanctuary has reached level 19.Swipe has reached level 25 (+2).Brutal Restoration has reached level 27 (+3).Bear Form has reached level 26 (+2).Bestial bat has reached level 26 (+2).Natural Prowess has reached level 17 (+2).Survival Instinct has reached level 16.Battle Trance has reached level 9 (+3).

  Identify has reached level 9.

  “Holy shit, we did it,” Malika said.

  “Yup,” Mato said, her a fist bump. “Ali’s circle was clutch.”

  “You say that again,” Malika said, pung his fist with a final fsh of searing healing magic.

  “What was that about my circle?” Ali asked, grinning.

  “It was ok,” Mato offered. “Not too bad for a few hurried doodles…”

  “Hey!”

  timewalk