Mantle of the Gods

Both Buffers were running.

They were each trying to circle the other, piling buffs on themselves while trying to debuff the other. Andes looked like he was using status reducers, Poison, Curse, and Bleed while Aelin had buffed herself with Quicken and Mystify and was shooting her pink Magic Arrows. On the other half of the battlefield I could see concern on Justia’s face, but she wasn’t using any heal spells. Aelin wanted to do this on her own and they were letting her.

Andes gestured at the ground in between them and a puddle of tar formed under Aelin’s feet.

She jumped back and pointed at it and came down on a solid black footing. She’d hardened the tar, taking away its movement reducing quality. The thing that she couldn’t take away though, was its flammability.

Andes ignited the tar, setting fire to the ground under her as he tried to move away.

Aelin used her Soften to make the rock flooring under him spongey, which slowed down how fast he could move.

She landed a few Magic Arrows on him as she ran out of the flames.

Andes changed tactics and knelt down, creating a golden barrier in front of him as the tar spread out from in front of him. He did something to it because now it was bubbling.

“What skill is that?” I’d seen the inky tar during our fight with the tentacle monsters in Tres Temple dungeon, but I hadn’t seen it do that.

“He’s stacking skills” Gesai pointed at the bubbling tar that was now on fire. It was like a column of fire chasing after Aelin. “If that catches her…” The older woman shook her head.

Aelin must have realized that too because she started putting distance between them. The fire only made it out to about fifty feet before it stopped and the flames died down to embers as it smoldered on the tar.

The crowd was yelling and cheering. I heard a few people commenting about how impressive it was that someone so young had that much control at being able to manage three skills at once.

“What does she do?” I looked over at the teacher, “She can’t get close now and that barrier of his…” I shook my head, “With the Poison, she can’t have much longer if Justia doesn’t heal her .”

A globe of darkness settled around Andes as Aelin took a knee. Then another and another and another.

“When did she learn that?” Gesai tapped on her CB and scrolled through the menu until she pulled up Aelin’s information. “Void Zone?” The red-haired woman looked at me, “She didn’t have that yesterday.”

I looked away, “She must have got it from the Supply Store.” It was one of the skills we’d earned while farming the boss this morning. I’d thought about taking it, or giving it to Ren, but Aelin hadn’t gotten anything in a while and while it wasn’t very useful for fighting bosses, it could drop aggro if used on an ally. Though the ally would be blind unless they had darkvision, which was a skill we were going to look into getting once we got back to the mainland.

“The Supply Store has been closed all day.” Gesai glared at me, “I went to see if there might be something that would help with this fight. You went into the dungeon alone!”

“If it helps, Trent knew about it?” I tried to smile.

“That doesn't...!” She pointed at me, “When this is over…”

I had a feeling that Trent wasn’t going to count whatever punishment she came up with towards his idea. “Sorry.”

“Why...?”

Her question got cut off as the crowd gasped. We both looked to see Aelin, still on one knee. She had her bow lying horizontally on her knee and was gripping tightly with her left. Her right hand was sweeping across the shaft and pulling up to the string. It looked like almost a dozen pink Magic Arrows were lining the bow as she fired the volley into the void zones.

I could see the determination on her face as she fired another, then another. The magic drain was extreme to shoot that many at once, not to mention that she was poisoned and bleeding.

“NO!!!” Andes screamed from his seat next to Savyn, “There is no way that WHORE beat ME!”

The crowd was ignoring him though. There was no way for Aelin to know that she had beat him, but she fired another, then another, then she started to fall.

Her head landed on my shoulder and I grabbed her to keep her from falling out of the chair.

Oz was already in motion as the darkness in the room vanished to reveal that both Buffers were gone. She skid to a stop and turned around.

“I tried…” Aelin was crying.

“Hey.” I held her shoulders and moved in front of her, “You got him.” I steadied her, “You won.”

Her brown eyes looked over me and I saw a smile spread across her face. “I got him.”