Mardou, Tower Scriptsmith: D-Rank

The boss was weird. For one thing, he was named. Most bosses weren't named until B-Rank portals; that was when the shift from unknown monsters to ones with reputations occurred. There were horror stories about some of them: dragons, orc warlocks, and insanely powerful knights whose blows could crater steel and shatter stone.

But for a D-Rank portal boss to be named was unusual. Not unheard of—it wasn't a sign of a trap portal—but unusual.

For another, he wasn't corporeal.

Mardou 'stood' before us mid-air, a thin figure in ethereal robes. Everything about him glowed the same purple as the torches that lined the tower's top, from the Scripts and Bindings that ran across his clothing to the long, wispy hair that trailed behind him. He looked human—or at least, like he'd once been human. But everything about him seemed stretched. Too long to be real.

He spoke. I couldn't make out the words—they weren't English, and they didn't match the language the elves had used, either. Then he pointed with one finger and pulled a book from the gap in his robes with his other hand. It opened, and he tore a page free.

A Script book, just like mine or Yasmin's.

We couldn't let him fill the floor with traps; it was a big tower, but not big enough that we could afford to lose space to maneuver. "Go!" I shouted.

"On it," Jeff said. He raised his shield and used his taunt skill, but before it could go off, the Script slapped onto the boss's chest, and Mardou catapulted high into the air, dodging Jeff's attack. He hovered there, and the Script book's pages flipped quickly to a new page.

Mardou tore that one free, too, and tossed it into the air. It folded itself into a tube and rocketed toward the ground—straight toward Jeff.

"Dodge!" I yelled, but I knew he wouldn't be fast enough. I quickly summoned a handful of Ariette's Zephyrs, then threw one toward the plummeting tube of paper. It impacted, and instead of a dangerous Binding, confetti rained down around our team's tank.

But in the time it had taken me to react, three more Scripts had hit the ground.

Two of them unfolded into suits of black armor, armed with spears made of paper. They were nearly identical to the Guardians we'd been fighting, but slightly faster. "Jeff, you got those?" I asked.

"Yeah. Keep the skies clear!" he yelled back.

The night, already dark, began to turn pitch-black as Ellen drained the shadows around her. She quickly surrounded herself with a glowing ball of not-light, then launched into a barrage of spells that drained her aura until it flickered weakly. Shadow Box, her orb of darkness—everything she had rippled out at the boss. Then she tapped out. "Next spell in thirty seconds," she said. She'd done a lot of damage in her burst, though: Mardou was reeling from her massive attack, his ghostly purple body flickering and pulsing as the shadows faded.

"Got it," I said. I launched my next three Zephyrs at even more papers as Scripts and Bindings rained down on the battlefield. Mardou's book's pages flipped so fast they were almost invisible, stopping suddenly on a Script that he tore free and threw onto the battlefield. The last Zephyr punched into the boss to little effect.

Stamina: 103/250, Mana: 69/250

"Shifting to help you, Jeff," I said. Then I rotated behind the first suit of paper armor—avoiding a Binding that hit the ground right next to me—and stabbed into the monster's back. It rocked from the two-handed lunge, then started spinning toward me, spear flashing. I ducked under the hit and used Flareflourish. The summoned monster reeled back, and I threw a lunge at its chest. The rapier scraped across it. Sparks flew. Then it found a purchase, and my enemy went down.

I shifted to the second one as Jeff ducked a flailing, whirling spear. A quick parry knocked the circle attack off-course, and I followed it up with a riposte to my enemy's 'face.' It flinched back. Jeff's shield crashed into it, and he drove it to the ground. "I got this. Deal with the traps!" he shouted.

As I looked around, I understood what he meant. Papers rained down like hail. The battlefield was covered in them, some Scripts that activated immediately to reveal physical traps ranging from spiked caltrops to a fully-formed pit trap over the seemingly bottomless hole and ladder. Others were Bindings, sitting there menacingly and waiting for someone to make a mistake.

Yasmin ran toward me. "We've got to cut him off from his power!"

"The book?"

"Yeah," she said.

"I understand." I summoned, then Overcharged, a single Ariette's Zephyr around my sword, using Focus Casting to buy an extra few feet of range. Another Script fell from the sky and hit the ground next to Ellen, cutting her off mid-cast as a spike rammed through the top of her foot. She screamed.

I ignored her. She knew how to deal with pain; she'd either do it or she wouldn't.

Instead, I aimed the Overcharged Zephyr carefully, trying to get an angle through the cascade of paper overhead. Then I fired, and the dart of air expanded into a proper missile as it rocketed through the night sky.

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My shot slammed into the book, and paper erupted all around Mardou as his Script book exploded. It whirled around the ethereal boss in a storm of Mana and parchment.

Then it formed an arc over him as he descended to the ground, a forge hammer made from paper in one hand and a nib pen the size of a dagger in the other.

Kartou's robes solidified first, then the skin below them. Scripts and Bindings slowed, then stopped moving across them altogether. He strode across the battlefield, aiming toward me even as Jeff finished cutting the knight in front of him apart.

I dropped into my defensive, one-handed stance, free hand manifesting a single Ariette's Zephyr; my Mana pool was too drained for more than that, and my aura too weak. The hammer rose up as Kartou threw himself into the air, purple aura trailing behind him.

Then it flashed down. I got the Stormsteel rapier up in time to avoid it pulping my face, but the impact wrenched my arm. A single orb of water appeared at the blade's end, but I had to parry a second time as the dagger-like pen slammed toward my chest. I summoned the Stormsteel breastplate; now wasn't the time to worry about Mana efficiency—it was the time to survive the boss's onslaught.

I didn't need Rain-Slicked Blade right now. Instead, as Mardou swung his hammer around for another blow, I used Cloudwalk, consuming the Rainfall Charge I'd just picked up and ducking toward the thin, robed man. The hammer hit, but its impact felt muted, like a thick layer of padding had gotten between me and its head. It still knocked me aside, but my bones didn't crack, and I kept my feet.

Then I was in close. The Stormsteel rapier flashed out. It cut a line across the boss's chest, severing a section of his robe. It fluttered away off the tower. Then I followed up with another quick stab, trading my blow with his as the pen gouged out a chunk of my armor. I backed off, stepping lightly and gaining distance. I needed to breathe—to analyze.

The boss leaped into the air and came down. I parried the hammer blow, then parried again as he repeated the move. Square-shaped chunks of his ethereal flesh began to darken; Ellen was casting again. And Jeff joined the fight. He crashed into the boss hard enough to knock him off his feet.

I had a window.

I fired my Ariette's Zephyr as the boss rolled off Jeff's shield and stood tall again. It hit him mid-chest—not hard enough to stagger him, but hard enough to get his attention. Then I followed it up with a lunge straight to Kartou's side as he spun. The sword bit into ghostly skin and bone. I pulled the blade out and danced away as the hammer slammed down where I'd been standing.

Two Charges—one Rainfall and one Lightning—orbited my blade.

I didn't consume either of them. Instead, I pressed my attack even as Ellen's magic faded. Every slash and stab carried both orbs into Mardou's body, ripping apart his flesh. His Health fixed the wounds in seconds, but we were making headway; we'd already knocked him from the sky and forced him to fight us on our terms. Now we just needed to wear him down.

A cut to his neck—blocked by the oversized pen.

Jeff's shield slam—countered with a hammer strike that forced the tank on the defensive.

We traded blows, rotating, leaping, and sidestepping in an effort to flank each other. My final Ariette's Zephyr punched into the boss's throat. He staggered back. Then his massive, leaping hammer attack happened again. He hung in the air, the paper hammer hovering over my head. I switched stances, dropping into the defensive stance. I used Flashstep.

When he came down, I was behind him. I switched stances as he recovered, ducked his dagger slash, and used Rain-Slicked Blade.

My sword cut through the back of his neck, all the way to the bone, and then through it. Even as the hypercompressed water parted ethereal flesh, Mardou's Health knit the wound back together. The blade erupted from the front of his neck as electricity sparked again.

His Health sputtered to a stop, windpipe still sliced through.

Then Jeff's sword punched through the boss's chest, and when he pulled it free, Mardou slumped to the brick, and the torches flickered, then returned to their red-orange coloring.

"Well, that was rough," Yasmin said.

Jeff nodded. "Couldn't have done it without you." He leaned down and picked up the boss core. I wanted it, but I had two other things on my mind—one of which had filled my vision mid-fight until I'd gotten rid of it.

Skill Learned: Spellblade Affinity

Mages possess phenomenal power. Fighters and strikers offer up close pressure. On the surface, these fighting styles are opposites. However, their strengths can cover each other's weaknesses; A striker with a few offensive spells becomes a dangerous threat even at range, and a mage with a blade cannot be pressured as effectively by weaker enemies. Increases the speed of spellcasting while in melee range.

Upgrade Effects: 1. Each rank increases the travel speed of spells cast while wielding a one-handed weapon.

I'd gotten it. The build was all but there—I just had to find a few more portals to clear, and I'd be ready for the fourth of my five merges. Whatever Stormwind School became, it'd offer huge amounts of flexibility, and I couldn't wait to see how Wind Charges interacted with the other two. Finishing this skill would be a huge increase in my power.

But I couldn't see how close I was to my fourth merge. There wasn't time. I blinked away the message and unsummoned my armor and weapon. Five figures were approaching across the bridge, all wearing near-identical black cloaks and armor. "Hey, guys, we've got company, and I doubt they're friendly."

I'd been wrong. The thumps hadn't been monsters or a trap, or at least not the kind the portal world had. They'd been delvers—a full team of them.

An arrow whipped by my head.

They'd cornered us on top of the tower.

Deborah Callahan sat in her sports car, listening to the radio as the news anchor went on and on about a possible relief caravan to the fortress-city of Carlsbad. Phoenix's guilds all had a presence there, though none more so than Coyotes and the Iron Falcons out of Tucson. In a matter of a few months, the number of reinforcement requests had spiked.

The odd thing, according to the anchor, was that the Carlsbad Portal Break hadn't worsened. The fighting on that front wasn't any worse than it had been in the eight years since the break started. Sure, they couldn't get close enough to close it, but they could keep it contained.

So, if the break wasn't why Carlsbad was churning through high-ranking delvers, then what was? The anchor didn't know, and neither did Deborah.

She turned off the radio and focused on the green portal across the street. Or, rather, where it had just been. The portal itself had vanished, though the Governing Council's barriers and representative still stood in the middle of the arroyo, just past the bridge she was illegally parked on.

Someone had cleared it.

Whether it was her team or that impudent E-Ranker who'd had the gall to reject her extremely generous deal, she now had a little under an hour to wait.

Carter better have pulled through. If not, she'd have to start taking matters into her own hands. The rest of her plan was in too much jeopardy to spend real time on this, though. But then again, Deborah wasn't one to let problems simmer when she could handle them.

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