Mage Tank

***

SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY: DELVE CORE 9963

ADDENDUM NOTE: Those bastards.

***

Core 9963 watched the Delvers work in shock. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, so she reset her sensor arrays and even did a soft reboot of her operating system. When everything came back online, the scene before her was the same.

They were stealing her Minion.

The social victory was one thing. That was irritating but valid. Not all Delvers preferred to solve their problems with violence and 9963 allowed some leeway for ‘talk-it-out’ solutions, even though they were dumb and not nearly as cool as dismemberment.

Sure, the boss had high Wisdom, immunity to several mental debuffs, and was designed to be omni-hostile. It wasn’t supposed to be something that could be beaten through, ugh, Mesmerize. Even so, it was fair play and she wasn’t mad about it.

…

Honestly, Mesmerize wasn’t even that great! The debuff hadn’t been on her radar at all. It only protected the one person who Mesmerized the enemy, and definitely should not have extended to the entire party. It was a gimmick to keep the squishies safe, not something to break open an entire boss encounter with!

Of course, their Charisma mage had–like the Vault Guardian–also been a golem for some fucking reason. The Vault Guardian’s empathy restrictions had been overtaxed by the mage’s–admittedly–heartwrenching diatribe on how she’d struggled to find herself after breaking free of the person who’d defined her entire existence–her dad.

Her dad was also the golemancer who’d made her, which was a weird family dynamic. Also, the mage was a high priestess who’d worshipped her dad as a god? Or, she was a model based on the priestess. And her dad kind of was a god, but only the avatar of half of one… or something.

Core 9963 had trouble wrapping her chassis around it, so she ignored the mage’s tragic and overly complicated backstory to focus on more important things.

Revenge.

Social victory aside, these Delvers had transgressed. Unsatisfied with their lame and boring Mesmerize exploit, these assholes had decided to steal from her! They broke down the Guardian’s binding arrays like they were friggin’ experts on Delve Core golem assembly. Then, they’d disassembled the big oaf and stuffed him into the Full Bearded Donkey’s seemingly endless inventory.

Well, Core 9963 wasn’t going to sit idle as she watched the burglary in action. She pulled up the control sigils for the Throne’s current final boss and ensured everything was powered and ready to go. Then, she pored over the hundreds of chambers within the Delve, looking for the best place to drop the potent Undead.

The boss chamber alone was no longer good enough.

She paused as she brought up one of the primary holding facilities. There were ten legions inside, along with a dozen Spiritual collectors that could repurpose the Undead souls if they were destroyed. If the Delvers rampaged through the army, she could ramp up power to her fabricators and pump out Wraiths like nobody’s business!

Plus, the Demi-Lich Commander boss could fire off AoE buffs and reassemble the Undead that hadn’t been completely destroyed.

The only teeny tiny little minor issue was that those collectors also managed power to one of her ‘projects’. It drew ambient Spiritual energy from the 15,180 Undead within to maintain her backup containment weaves.

She debated whether the risk of damage to the weaves was worth seeing the Delvers put in their rightful place for an eternal 0.03 seconds.

They were just backups.

It would be fine!

The felonious party would be too busy trying to survive to pay attention to anything other than the horde. Besides, the collectors were on the ceiling, and fleshbags never looked up anyway.

She teleported the boss to Detention Center No. 1 and worked on subtly enticing the Delvers to find their way inside.

***

END ADDENDUM

***

*****

We made good time sending Vaulty into the Closet via my inventory screen, where Grotto would reassemble the friendly boss and let him stretch his legs. However, before we’d even been able to pat each other on the back for a job well done, a portal opened. Accompanying the portal was a System message that I would describe as “suspicious as shit”.

Bonus objective completed!

Congratulations, you totally did the armory section exactly how it was supposed to be done! I’m super surprised at how talented you are.

As a reward, you can skip straight to the boss! No need to keep slogging your way through legions and wasting your time exploring the place, especially since you’ve been ignoring 90% of it. You’re probably really busy, so I completely understand why you wouldn’t be interested in wasting your time with the rich Zng history, the compellingly designed environment, or any of the dozens of riddles and sub-challenges that were lovingly added in. Nope, no time for that. I get it.

So, boss! You can go through this portal and it’ll take you straight there.

Really it’s just a formality at this point. You’ve 100% proven you deserve to beat the place, so just go fight the boss and you’ll be done. It probably won’t even be hard since you’re so strong and skillful.

Yeah! Boss time!

Go through the fucking portal.

[I believe the Delve Core is upset with you.]

“Upset with us,” I thought to my familiar. “Don’t run from the responsibility of being an enabler.”

“We should not take this portal,” Nuralie thought to the group. “It is the most obvious trap I have ever seen.”

“Since we know about it, we can make it into a reverse trap!” thought Etja.

“Okay,” I thought. “How would that work?”

“We walk into the trap, but blow it up instead!”

“I guess I could do that.”

“For how long can you channel Explosion?” asked Varrin.

“Sorry, what spell is that?” I replied, making an exaggerated show of my confusion.

Varrin rolled his eyes. “How big can you make your Explosion!?”

“Oh, that spell. Sorry, your pronunciation was off the first time. Let me do the math.” I took a quick breath. “Alright, I’ve done the math. With my current mana pool, I can get a 265-foot radius, up to 795 if Etja soul hugs me to add her Finishing Move. If Etja also adds a spell that’s mana-shaped for size, we can probably get the radius up to around 1,300.”

“That is a half-mile diameter,” thought Nuralie. “That would encompass more than six of the legion chambers we have encountered.”

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“It’d also be enough damage to kill anything we’ve found so far,” I thought. “Hmm, maybe not Vaulty since we don’t know what his health and defenses looked like. Still, if the boss has any adds it would take care of them and probably put a big dent in the boss’s resources.”

“How much mana would you have left?” asked Xim.

“Twenty. I’d be juiced.”

“But it would be fun!” Etja thought.

“What happened to talking to them?” asked Nuralie.

I waved at the portal. “What are the chances the Delve core is taking us toward something we can have a chat with?”

“Low,” thought Xim.

“But not zero,” thought Nuralie.

“I can charge up a quarter mile and give us eighteen seconds for diplomacy.”

“Eighteen seconds is a long time in a fight,” thought Varrin. “If we are attacked immediately, we would lose a significant advantage.”

“But if they do want to talk, I’d have an extra two hundred mana to work with when it goes south.”

“Sounds reasonable,” thought Xim. “If we go in and decide we’re in trouble I can burn my cooldowns.”

“How many?” I asked.

“That depends on how much trouble there is.”

[I am extremely doubtful there will be a peaceful solution.]

“Do these Undead have souls?” asked Etja.

I turned to her, surprised by the question. “They do.”

“Then they’re people being enslaved by a Delve Core, trapped in eternal servitude as Undead pawns. If we kill them and release their souls, we’re ending their suffering.”

Everyone paused to absorb Etja’s words, which had been spoken with such venom and conviction it was like she’d become another person for a few seconds. Her talk with Vaulty had awoken some strong emotions.

“Are you advocating for us to use Plan: Final Flash?”

“No,” thought Etja, shaking her head. “I want us to use Plan: Serious Punch.”

The psychic comms went silent as we digested her suggestion.

“We’ve never used that one.”

“We’ve never needed to use that one,” thought Xim.

“We have come close,” thought Nuralie.

“Only mid-fight,” Xim replied. “We’ve never gone in with it from the beginning.”

“What about Normal Punch?” I asked.

“That still seems like overkill,” thought Xim. “This Delve hasn’t been hard.”

Grotto chuckled but didn’t add anything.

“We cannot use Serious Punch without Shog,” Varrin thought.

“That’s true,” thought Xim.

“How about First Comes Rock?” I asked.

“That would give us more flexibility,” thought Varrin.

Etja crossed one pair of her arms. “If we’re using the Hunter category, we should jump straight to Aura Synthesis.”

*****

We discussed several more options with highly original names that I assure you I did not steal from my favorite anime shows. Finally, we decided to open with Aura Synthesis and then pivot based on what we found.

Normally we’d have preferred to scout, but with an angry Delve Core sending us to an unknown location, we were worried that Nuralie would wind up in a deadly situation.

Xim maxed out our Blessed stacks and cast the Blessings of Hunger and Pounding on Varrin. We all took a Potion of Clarity from Nuralie to improve our mental defenses. Varrin manifested one soul clone, and Etja used her soul hug on me and we built up our Explosion! combo. I made sure Life Warden was up on Etja.

Just before entering the portal, I activated Aura of Persistence, granting everyone Shielding, Xim activated Sam’lia’s Warmth, granting everyone healing, Varrin used Enrage to prime his Berserk buffs, and Nuralie used a new skill called Wraithwalk, which made her incorporeal while still allowing her to make attacks. She was sticking with the group for this strategy, so she needed survivability if the enemy started throwing down AoEs.

We all either grabbed or were grabbed by Varrin–Except for Nuralie because she couldn’t, due to being incorporeal–and the big guy flew us into the portal at full speed. Nuralie was fast enough to keep up without issue.

We appeared in a chamber that was two miles wide, in the middle of a fucking Undead army.

I quickly surveyed the enemy and took in the thousands of soldiers. Then I did what any smart Delver would do and looked up to check on the number of Serpents. There were dozens of them looping through the air throughout the chamber, about a hundred feet off the ground. An Undead woman hovered amongst them, wearing ornate golden armor over dark flowing robes. She was directly overhead.

Grand Commander Lillithin Tyrianaeonis: Demilich, Grade 26

A thousand feet above her, I noticed several devices spread across the ceiling that pulsed and blazed in my mana sight. I figured those were probably important, so I’d keep a close watch to see if they did anything.

There was also a massive ritual weave on the ground, encircling us.

The position the Delve Core had put us in was probably meant to be intimidating. I understood why they thought it was a good move. We were at the center of four legions forming a perfect kill box on all sides. Crossfire apparently wasn’t an issue with their weird guns.

The closest Undead was over 100 feet away, putting them outside of melee and even most mid-range spells. The boss was in the air, where flightless Delvers might struggle to reach her, but close enough to start dropping the hammer on us as soon as we appeared.

There were many ways to make this more lethal, though. It was still a tough position to be in, but they’d seriously underestimated our range.

My Speed, Intelligence, and Wisdom allowed me to soak in these details in about a quarter of a second. I immediately tried the olive branch.

“We’re here to talk!” I shouted in Zng.

That went over as well as we’d suspected it would. When the first spatial rifle tickled my ribs with its attack and the ritual circle started glowing, we executed our plan.

I snapped and released a 650-foot radius Explosion! I’d been charging for eighteen seconds. The four legions were 400 feet deep and 125 feet away. Explosion! caught them all. Etja’s chosen spell to combine with my big boom was Nullify, which we reasoned made sense as a defensive measure, in case the Core was dropping us into a magic death trap. In a sense, they had. The massive ritual circle certainly wasn’t there for our benefit.

A thunderous clap shook the air and a pressure wave, roiling with blue mana-eating energy, rolled out at the speed of sound. The ground cracked and splintered, whipping dust and shards of stone into the maelstrom. The Undead on all sides were torn asunder as the detonation struck their front lines. Armor crumpled, thousands of bodies ragdolled through the air, colliding and crushing one another as sharp rocks tore through bodies like paper.

Nullify ripped apart the mana weave at our feet, canceling whatever magic the Demilich was working. The Grand Commander also wasn’t spared the Explosion! The blast hurtled her upward, sending her careening several hundred feet higher amidst shredded gore and bone from a dozen annihilated Serpents.

Then, everything got sucked.

My new version of Explosion! had two phases. The first was the normal detonation, the form the spell took if I used it as an instant cast. However, once I’d channeled it for three seconds or more, it pulled enemies to its center after the initial blast.

Nearly five thousand bodies froze in the air and reversed course, along with the stone and debris. The Demilich crashed down toward us–still alive–and I made a split-second decision.

“Grapple,” I thought to Xim. The cleric had anticipated the move and was already transforming.

As the mass of bodies collapsed on our position, Xim’s armor fell away and she used her Revelation of the Heart to turn into a towering, pale-red beast with a single onyx horn. She reached out and snagged the Demilich from behind before she hit the ground, digging her flaming claws into the woman’s ribs. She bit down on the Grand Commander’s trapezius and wrapped thick legs around her waist.

At the same time, we were buried beneath a massive pile of stone shrapnel and ancient corpses. On the one hand, being entombed in a thirty-foot-thick sphere of death was usually a bad thing. Hate it when that happens. On the other hand, none of the thousands of soldiers still standing had line of sight on us.

Being struck by the dross that Explosion! sucked back in wasn’t too dangerous, since the vast majority of it was now ‘mundane’ and our Fortitude granted us a massive resistance. It was by no means comfortable, but it hadn’t been particularly risky and it was an incredible opportunity.

I used Elemental Barrier to create a dome of rampaging Sonic damage around us, shunting all the bodies and debris back to create a sort of corpse igloo. The Demilich’s body was twisted from the explosion, but she muttered a haunting phrase and dark energy ran through her limbs, snapping bones back into place.

Varrin and his soul clone both immediately used Soul Strike on the Demilich, thrusting their blades through the Commander’s head and expertly avoiding Xim. Nuralie fired an arrow into the boss’s eye, and Spectral damage started rampaging through the Demilich’s body from one of the alchemist’s Spiritual toxins.

Etja wove Repulsion into Magic Blast, delivering a wrist-thick beam of Force and Holy damage into the enemy’s skull, while Xim dropped a Judgment even as she wrestled with the Undead, Igniting the Commander and a swath of the bodies still surrounding us.

The Demilich screamed and a wave of Wicked damage started to pour out of its body. The biggest problem with our current formation was that it required us to stay close together, making AoEs a pain. The attack threatened to engulf all of us, handicapping our max health for the rest of the encounter.

I snapped out a Dispel, losing thirty mana to cancel the attack.

With her dying spell thwarted, the Demilich’s body turned to ash and crumbled.

Xim let out a low growl, then spoke in a layered, throaty voice. Flames licked across her lips as the word came out.

“Nice.”

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