Dungeon Noble - Squire

Alan took point as they set off, following what Jake thought was the most direct route to the next Dungeon, and so was hopefully the path the Corruptors were taking.

Their pace was good. Felix was using his usual trick of telling them to practice their running ready for when they might need it.

The Corruptors would have to be moving at full pace to keep ahead of them like this, and as far as Jake knew, they didn’t know they were being chased quite this relentlessly.

Jake clung to that as they pushed on, following behind Alan with as much speed as they could manage.

In his mind he could almost see their enemy as they slowly and inexorably closed the distance.

The only question now would be if they reached them before they had the chance to destroy the Dungeon.

Jake could feel himself rolling that question over in his mind almost endlessly and shook his head, pushing it aside and focusing on the path ahead.

“Some final advice before we arrive,” Felix said, coming alongside Jake and matching his pace. “You’ve fought Corrupters before, but only once, correct?”

Jake nodded, conserving his breath for running.

“We use Wyrd for everything we do, it is the lifeblood of the System itself. Corrupters use Skryx, the foul magic of the Shrouded. It perverts and corrupts, and is dangerous in the extreme.”

“I remember,” Jake said between breaths, seeing in his mind’s eye the purple and black energy that had seemed to dissolve whatever it struck.

“Good. What you need to remember is that mundane weapons and armour will break at its touch. A shield like the one Nepthys can conjure is your best defence, but failing that, strike at the attack with a Wyrd-sheathed blade. It will not be a perfect defence, but it will be better than nothing. Your flesh will resist better now that you’re second tier, but don’t rely on that.”

Jake nodded and Felix waited a moment to make sure he had no further questions before heading forward, likely to have the same conversation with Alan.

Considering the nature of what they were fighting, Jake took a moment to take his shield off his back, just in case.

-**-

Contact with the Corrupters, when it happened, was as abrupt and dangerous as Jake had feared.

Alan had been leading them through a dense thicket of trees when Nepthys abruptly straightened and drew her swords. “Corrupters!”

Confusion reigned as they all drew their weapons and tried to see what Nepthys had spotted, but any questions were answered as a barrage of purple-black projectiles came streaking out from the undergrowth.

Nepthys conjured a shield to block as many as she could, and Gargan caught the rest with a cone of bright flame that seared Jake’s eyes and made him flinch to one side.

Thankfully, the Wyrd-infused flames broke the projectiles apart, just as Felix had said they would.

“Kill them all!” A woman’s voice rang out from the trees even as they dealt with the first attack, and a group of figures came bursting out of their hiding spots.

Jake cursed and pulled his sword free as the Corrupters came into view. He counted eight of them in total.

The Corrupter who’d spoken was a tall, graceful woman wielding a spear and shield, both of which were aflame with black-streaked purple flames.

Behind her came a short but powerfully built man in some sort of scaled armour wielding a pair of flanged maces that were equally infused with Skryx.

Another two Corrupters were present on that side, with four others on the other side of the trail. None of them looked as impressive as those two, however.

The woman motioned with her arm and a torrent of Skryx plunged out and down into the shadow of a nearby tree.

For a moment, Jake wondered if she’d missed somehow, and then the tree folded in on itself and melted into the shadow.

Rising in its place was a six-legged insect-like creature that seemed made from purple-tinted shadows.

Jake’s eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to shout a warning when Ari sprinted past him in a blur, his huge blade gaining a grey tint to its edge as it swung around to bisect the shadow beast.

“Those two are ours, deal with the rest,” Felix said as he stepped past Jake, his eyes on the mace-wielder who was shifting and growing in size with each step, his flesh bulging inside the scaled armour.

“I’ll take this side, everyone else take the other one,” Jake called out, not questioning Felix’s decision in the slightest.

He had no idea what that thing was that she’d summoned, or what sort of madness that transformation had been, but it was out of his league right now.

Focusing on the other two on this side of the trail, Jake saw one was a wand user, likely the source of that first barrage, and the other had a long-handled axe.

Lifting his wand, the Corrupter at the rear sent a trio of needle-like blasts of Skryx at Jake, who swiftly dodged aside, avoiding them entirely.

A grunt of pain that sounded like Gargan came from behind Jake a moment later and he cursed as he realised his error.

Laughing, the Corrupter repeated the attack, even as the other one closed the distance in a blink using some sort of movement Skill.

Meeting the projectiles head on this time, Jake cut through them with an Infused Strike, the Wyrd on his sword sizzling as it made contact with the Skryx.

Jake did his best to avoid the axe of his other attacker, but couldn’t quite get fully out of the way and still block the projectiles.

The Skryx infused edge of the axe cut through Jake’s shield like it wasn’t even there, coming a few inches away from taking a chunk of his hand with it.

Cursing, Jake threw himself back and hurled the shattered remnants of his shield into the Corrupter’s face before sprinting at the wand-wielder in a looping manner.

The sudden change of direction caught the axe-wielder by surprise, but his companion lifted his wand and sent a barrage of Skryx shooting at Jake.

Trusting that he’d changed the angle enough to not leave his friends vulnerable, Jake dove to one side, rolling up to his feet as he used a Manifestation and conjured Moby.

Some experimentation with his Boons had showed Jake that he had a limited distance in which to summon them, and he couldn’t do so in the personal space of another person.

There was nothing stopping him conjuring Moby right above the Corrupter, though.

The arriving quack was just loud enough to make the Corrupter look up, his wand still tracking Jake’s movement as he did.

Falling beak-first, Moby struck the Corrupter dead on, buffeting him with his wings while stabbing him with his beak.

Despite the changes Moby had undergone, he still struggled to do much damage with anything other than his beak.

Unfortunately for the the Corrupter, Moby only needed his beak to snatch out the man’s eye.

It was neither a clean nor simple affair, and Moby ended up thrown to the ground with a great hole in his wing and his prize clutched in his beak.

“Damn duck!” The Corrupter snarled, lifting a hand to conjure a bolt of Skryx that would finish the job.

Jake’s sword burst through the man’s chest before he could do more than take aim, though Jake had no time to stay and finish the deed.

The air whistled as an axe flashed through the space Jake had just occupied, cutting into the impaled Corrupter before he was shoved aside.

Cursing as he struggled to stay ahead of the axe-wielder, Jake used another Manifestation to conjure Dauhaust’s Root, the spear appearing in a flash of grey.

Grasping the weapon, Jake used it to block an overhead swing at the last moment and grinned savagely at the Corrupter as the spear held up against the Skryx.

After what Felix had told him, Jake had hoped that the intrinsic Wyrd within these conjured weapons would act like this.

Pushing the other man off of him, Jake used what little spear training he’d been given to its utmost and put some pressure on the Corrupter.

Unfortunately, the Corrupter was better with his axe than Jake was with his new spear, so some alternative methods were required.

Moby couldn’t fly, but he waddled close enough to throw himself bodily at the Corrupter, right at the same time as Jake threw his spear in the man’s face and leapt backwards.

Having already had the broken shield thrown at him, the Corrupter was wary enough that he managed to knock the spear aside.

The surprise duck attack was enough of a delay, however, for Jake to draw his wand and start firing thorns at him.

The Corrupter threw Moby aside and ducked his head to shield his face before charging at Jake with a growl.

A dozen thorns were embedded in his upper torso, but the Corrupter was making the same choice as Jake had. Take the hits now and close the distance while it was an option.

Jake had intended to keep further away, but as soon as the Corrupter committed himself, Jake dropped the wand and dismissed the spear from where it lay, resummoning it into his hands.

The Corrupter must have seen the flash of Wyrd or sensed that something had happened, as he tried to slow his charge at the last moment, but that left him off balance and in a poor position.

The full reach of Dauhaust’s Root put its sharp tip through the heart of the Corrupter before he could get close enough to deliver a clean hit.

Bleeding and gasping for breath, the Corrupter snarled and threw his axe as best he could. Unable to dodge while holding him in place, Jake hissed in pain as the purple-black edge of the weapon sliced into his forearm.

It only took a moment of focus to activate the leeching effect of the spear, and Jake winced in pain as small tendrils punctured his palms.

Much larger ones writhed free of the spear’s tip to puncture the surrounding flesh of the Corrupter, and Jake felt raw energy pulse into him from the spear as it drank deep.

The effect was as horrible and invasive as Jake had feared, which made the euphoric sensation it gave him all the more sickening.

Pulling his spear free, Jake dismissed it and hurried over to reclaim his sword, picking up Moby along the way.

He’d done his part, now to help the others.