"We do?" Tun asked, speaking before any of them could form any sort of reply. Nar glanced in the direction of the big tank, but he couldn't read anything from his all-black eyes, or dark scaly face. Even the spines covering his skull and running down his neck remained still.

"Of course we do!" Row bristled, slapping his arm. "They're our people!"

"They might not be, but we still have to help," Sej said, frowning. "Even if we ignore the fact that people are about to die, Tsurmirel or not, or that some may already have, the dungeon guardian knows that we heard the call for the Crystal's Mercy. If we ignore it… Well, let's just say that things can go bad for us."

"No. Things will go bad for us," Sarke said. "You have to go. Now."

"I will, I will! Damn it!" Sej said, scratching the back of her head furiously. "Who here is fast and strong? My level's higher than those things but there's too many of them for me to make a difference if I'm not covered. Plus, they're uncommon…"

Her yellow eyes slid in Nar's direction as she spoke.

"I am the fastest," he said, masking his surprise.

"I know. I checked," the guide said. "At 89 points you're almost as fast as me."

"89?" Teb gaped. "How the fuck did you…"

"Hush!" Row silenced the quam.

So, we didn't check each other's statuses, but Sej did… Nar realized. We may have been stupid about that, worrying about useless stuff like privacy and what not.

Then again, was a status not the most private thing he held, after his very own thoughts?

"I'm strong too. I'll go with you," he said, pushing away the thought. "I'll cover you."

"Cheers. The next fastest would be… Viy."

"I'll go too," Viy said, then she grimaced. "But I've only got 51 points in [Speed]."

"I'm-I'm fastish too, but not as much…" Jul said, stepping forward. "I'm at 32, but I can catch up!"

"The rest of the melee is either at that level of [Speed] or below," Row said, scanning the assembled parties.

"I'll take you two with me then," Sej said, glancing between Nar and Viy. "Send another group after us. No ranged and no casters except for Jaz. This is going to be a messy, dirty brawl, and we need to keep enough people here to defend the camp from any surprises."

"Sounds like a job for me then," Mul said.

"No! Your rage can affect everyone," Kur said. "Just go, Sej. We'll figure it out!"

"You guys ready?" Sej asked.

"Let's do this!" Viy said, grinning predatorily.

Nar nodded with a grim expression. A herd of uncommon, sadistic beasts? This wasn't going to be easy.

Thank everything that we have [Dark Vision]... he thought.

"Ok, follow me then!" the guide said, heading for the exit.

"Be careful!" Row shouted after them.

And just like that, they were running through the trees, smashing through the underbrush. They were soaked to the bone within minutes, and as Nar took in a deep breath of night air, he was surprised to see that that temperature had gone a few degrees cooler. The air was a bit fresher too now, and easier to swallow.

"I don't know how much you know about these things, so listen up!" Sej said. "These things are no joke, you hear me? They are blind, but their [Hearing] is crazy good! Cacklers are night hunters. Flesh eaters! They're brutal and sadistic, and they love inflicting pain. They've got four limbs, and they can walk either like we do or on all fours. They have tough fur, a big mouth that opens up with four mandibles, and long, sharp claws. They are fast and agile, and they are excellent climbers too! So keep an eye above you as well!"

"Got it!" Nar said.

"What's the plan?" Viy asked, shouting to be heard above the rain.

"We're going to ram into their side and try to cause as much damage and chaos as we can! Nar, you're some kind of hybrid right, though no taunting skills?" Sej asked.

"Yes!"

"Can you cover us as much as possible?" she asked.

"I can if I focus on defense," Nar said, then he added with a grimace. "Somewhat."

"Just do your best. Viy, you'll likely have to protect yourself, but Nar try to keep them off me at the very least. I'm a ranged and I'll be able to snipe them off easily as long as you cover me," Sej told them, as they sped through the brush. "On the flip side, the damned guardian is going to punish your gains for my presence… Fuck. It would've been such a good opportunity…"

Let's worry about surviving the night first, Nar thought, as he ducked under a branch. Plenty of fighting and gains left in this delve.

"Also, whoever they're chasing sounds strong enough to put up a fight, so there's that at least. But we can't just approach them. Odds are they're from the Scimitar, but they could be aethermancers too! There's a good few local delvers still working inside the domain, and those two guilds are also active around the place."

Shit! I forgot about that, Nar thought, clenching his jaw.

"No skills then?" Viy asked.

"Not if they're aethermancers. And no cycling either if they are!" Sej said. "Not unless we're sure we're not going to hit them, and that they've stopped using their aether!"

"That would be a huge pain in the ass…" Viy muttered. "Cycling through my weapon is a huge part of my DPS!"

"I know!" Sej grunted. "But let's just assess the situation first. They're probably just your fellow apprentices in trouble. Come on, let's go faster!"

The deluge was blinding as they sped through the underbrush. Sej seemed to know exactly where to step in order to avoid the worst of it, and Nar and Viy did their best to follow in her footsteps as they sped through the black and white jungle revealed by their [Dark Vision].

So I'm almost as fast as her, Nar thought. She's 30 levels above mine… Is that the difference between a normal and an elite delver? Then again, she's a ranged and probably doesn't have the best [Speed] anyways…

Still, it was a thought, wasn't it?

Onwards they continued, falling into a tense silence, and the closer they got, gobbling the distance with ease, the better he could hear the cackling, the snarling and the desperate fighting. And that loud, insidious cak-cak-cak-cak was already setting his nerves on edge.

"Let me do the talking!" Sej shouted. "And follow my lead!"

"Will do!" Nar replied.

"Get ready… Now!"

And suddenly, they leaped over a root, and were amidst the chaos.

Black and white shapes darted everywhere in his [Dark Vision], and the cackling was deafening.

Nar raised his sword and lashed out at the first cackler that turned their away, and as expected, without aura, his blow didn't achieve much, and he was soon surrounded by a flurry of claws.

Stolen story; please report.

"Hello?" a voice shouted.

"Ho, there! We've heard your call!" Sej said.

"Thank the Ever Brilliant One! Thank you!"

"Are you also from the Scimitar? Auramancers?" Sej asked.

"No! We're aethermancer apprentices! We're on an assignment by ourselves!" the same strong male voice said, its tone firm even amongst all that snarling and cackling. And from the sounds of it, he was right where the fight was at its thickest.

"Shit!" Sej muttered under her breath. "Alright, since we're auramancers, can you keep your skills pointed away from us, if we fight them from this side?"

"Yes, yes! We can do that!"

A loud bang and a flash of burned yellow suddenly startled Nar, who glanced back in between dodging hits.

"Gun!" Sej said, raising her cylinder of a weapon in quick explanation. "How many of you are there?"

"There's six of us!" a female voice replied, her tone strained with pain. "Two are down and our guide is dead!"

"Dead? Crystal!" Sej muttered, she raised her gun and fired three shots in quick succession, downing three of the darting shapes. "Alright, we have more people coming, so just hang in there! I'm sorry we can't join you, but we need to use our auras to fight!"

"That's fine! What you're doing is already helping loads! Thank you so much!" the first voice said.

"Thank us after we all live through this!" Sej said. "There's more coming our way, so just hold on for now! Crystal! Are there three herds here?"

"Our guide said four before he…" the voice was cut off by a loud growling. "Calli, behind you!"

The night behind them was lit up by a series of bright, golden bangs, and Nar managed to steal a glance towards their right to catch the sight of a shadow firing what he guessed was a much smaller gun than Sej's into the crowd of cacklers. Whoever they were, they seemed to be propping up an injured person.

Damn all this aura and aether shit! Nar thought, as he was forced to stay away from the aethermancers. They would have to hold on their own.

"Light it up guys!" Sej shouted from behind them. "We're not surviving this without aura!"

"Gladly!" Viy replied.

Nar didn't bother replying, and instead, his follow up attack lit up the night, and his stomach twisted as he beheld the masses surrounding them.

Gray and deep blue-purple auras lit up the rain in cascading, dazzling reflections of waterfalls and heavy rain pouring down on them from the dense canopy above, and faces devoid of eyes turned in their direction. Extendible mandibles were stretched open, revealing nightmares of yellow, jagged teeth and black saliva below long, slender, red nostrils. And to complete the look of these dreadful beasts, obsidian claws reflected the light shining from Nar's blade, and then that split-second of stillness was over, and he was a storm amidst their herd once more.

What he had seen in that brief moment had told him everything he had needed to know. And as the purple light of Viy's aura lit up the night to his left, he figured that she too, had seen enough. They needed to get the killing going, and fast.

"Sej, what do we do?" he grunted at their guide.

"Viy, can you go a bit deeper into them, and use your [The Weight of Guilt] to slow them down?" the guide asked. "I'll focus my shots around you to cover you."

"On it!"

The halberdier pressed onwards, the now-telltale sphere of purple aura growing around her. Her weapon sliced and smashed through their ranks with impunity, and her mad dance kept them out of reach from their claws and mandibles, but as expected, the beasts had strong HP pools, and they refused to go down.

Suddenly Sej lifted her gun and fired it, and a cackler, just about to drop onto Viy from above, was blown away by the force of her shot.

"They're above us too!" she reminded them. "And don't worry! They won't get back up after my shots!"

Nar glanced up in between blocks and slashes, and his heart dropped to his stomach. The tree trunks around them were covered in hundreds of shifting figures in black and white, whose sounds must have been hidden by the storm overhead.

Well… Gains be damned. Thank fuck Sej is here, he thought. Having a delver thirty levels above theirs fighting alongside them might just be their salvation tonight.

"Nar, your [Aura Blade] only goes straight, right?" Sej suddenly asked him.

"Yes!" he shouted. "I can shoot about six, five seconds in between, before I need a break! But if there's more time in-between, I can just keep at it!"

"Oh… That's way better than I expected," Sej said, and nervous laughter escaped her. "We might stand a chance after all."

"Aren't we too close to them?" Nar asked, eyeing the aethermancers to their left.

"Let me worry about that," Sej said. "I'll guide you, ok? I'll tell you when to start and when to stop, and where to shoot them at. Auramancers and aethermancers can work together! It just takes a lot of care."

"Got it," Nar said, resolved to just trusting.

He sliced through the neck of one of the beasts, finally able to cut through its annoyingly high HP, and drew a wide semi-circle around him with his blade in order to get some breathing room. That beast was only the first that he actually killed in this encounter, and hopefully, his [Aura Blade] would yield a lot better results. They needed to be fast, and get those people from within that blood crazed herd.

With practiced ease, his pathways ignited and his blade shone even brighter in the night, a low hum emanating from it in a promise of the devastation he was about to unleash.

"Viy, hang in there, and keep distracting them!" Sej shouted.

"Leave them to me!" the pale halberdier replied.

She's doing surprisingly well, Nar realized, as he poured a little bit more aura into his swords' pathways just in case it was needed. I was a bit worried that this was going to trigger… Well, something. It's hard not to see the cannibals in these things…

However, even as snarling mouths snapped at her, and claws reached out to snatch her, the halberdier never faltered. He even saw one of the cacklers take hold of her shoulder and pull her backwards, but before he could even think of abandoning his skill and leaping to her aid, Viy saved herself. With a quick backwards thrust, the deadly sharp tip at the bottom of her halberd pressed into its fury tummy, and the beast was forced to backpedal as his HP quickly dropped.

But it didn't die, Nar thought, clenching his jaw. Pile! We need to level up!

"She's good!" Sej said. "Maybe those rare beasts will be something we can think about after all… Anyways, Nar, you ready?"

"What do you need?"

"I need you to shoot up at the trees, and towards my right. They're about to swarm us from there. Viy will hold our center, and I will help her and the party to our left. I will shout out commands in between your [Aura Blade]s to let you know where to aim, but in between that, fight as you want. Clear?"

"Clear!"

"Hey, aethermancers! We're going to unleash several AOE skills so don't come over until I say so!" Sej warned.

"Go ahead!" the male voice shouted back.

"These guys are nasty, but they're cowards, Nar! If manage to kill enough of them, they'll run away, so just hang in there!" Sej shouted. "Alright, the tree right in front of you, aim about 15-feet high! Now!"

Nar grit his teeth, his aura growing to that sudden, last split-second crescendo that set his pathways overflowing and blazing so hard, that it was actually visible through his skin in that darkness… And then he swung.

[Aura Blade]!

He didn't know if there were any consequences from unleashing his [Aura Blade] in such cramped quarters, or if he was about to bring the tree crashing down on them with, so he only poured 100 points of aura into his skill.

The line of line formed as his blade slashed through the rain, cutting individual droplets of water, and with a distorted growl, the edge of aura pushed the air itself aside as it cut towards its intended destination.

Nar let go of his skill just before it hit the tree, worried that he might slice through it, and just like during training, his aura exploded outwards in a rageful explosion of unleashed wrath. Nar only heard the effects of his skill though, as he kept his eyes closed so as to not blind himself in his [Dark Vision], and his [Hearing] picked up on the sound of several bodies dropping to the underbrush, and then, there was a sudden lull in the battle.

"Holy fuck…" another male voice said. "What in the Abyss was that?"

"Eum! Not now!" the original male retorted.

Then, the cacklers erupted in a frenzy.

"Here they come! Viy, hang on! Nar, keep shooting! Hit the tree next to the first! And go harder next time!" Sej shouted.

"Won't the trees fall on us?" he shouted, cycling double the aura into his blade.

"Ah! Not with those little cuts! These big things are as strong as metallium, so just go wild!" Sej said, firing her gun in a rapid spree.

Well, in that case… Nar thought, a small smile growing on his lips. Time to see if all that training was worth it!

Idly, he worried about running out of aura. So far his HP and grit had been enough to avoid any serious damage, and other than the burning claw marks the cacklers had managed to score against his body, he was perfectly fine. However, if he needed to resort to self-healing, that would be a different story.

I have my emergency aura in the sword's core if I need it, he told himself, as 200 aura points coursed into the blade. That'll have to do!

It was crazy to think about it, but truth was, he needed even more aura if he was to fully bring his full might to bear. The days of preserving it and being stingy with his skills needed to fall well behind him if he was to truly grow to that next stage, and so, he readied his [Aura Blade], determined on worrying about his damage, rather than his aura.

As before, the parting of air deafened any sounds of the conflict, and the ensuing explosion lit up the jungle. But the cacklers soon swarmed him, and he was nearly drowned under a tide of mandibles and claws.

Pile! These uncommon are something else! He thought, his sword drawing arches of brilliant aura at such speeds, that they seemed to hang in the air around him. [Sword Aura]! 100 points!

And at last, he was rewarded by the sight of wide, twin jets of dark blood as it erupted from two necks, and the beasts went down, thrashing as their leftover HP and life drained through their gaping necks.

Fucking finally! He thought. Gods! The Master of Blades was right! I really am weak! Nar thought, swallowing the pain as four claws scored deeper lines across his back, and he was forced to finally turn on his healing. But that'll change! It always does!

"There's more of them coming!" Sej said in their minds, with a strained thought. "Crystal… There might be six full herds in here! But that would mean…"

A much louder cackling echoed in the darkness, and suddenly, all of the cacklers erupted in a frenzy of cackling as even more beasts descended upon them.

"There's a top alpha in here!" Sej said, her tone horrified.

"What is that?" Nar asked, another [Aura Blade] illuminating the nightmarish mandibles and claws around them, this time without Sej's prompt.

"A cackler that has taken control of not just his own herd, but of several others," Sej explained in between shots. "It will be a much stronger uncommon! Maybe even medium-uncommon!"

"Isn't that fucking great!" Viy said.

Where are the others? Nar wondered, as his sight filled with swarming tree trunks.

Things weren't looking great.

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