Chapter 207: Buffs, Cooldowns, Consumables. Burn Them All.

    You have observed the Consecration spell!

    Consecration

    Divine

    Cost: 25 Mana

    Requirements: CHA 40, Divine Magic 40

    You consecrate the ground in a radius around you equal to your Divine Magic skill level in feet. You, your allies, and sacred entities receive a bonus to all DR equal to your CHA while inside the consecrated ground. Hostile and profane entities receive additional Righteous damage equal to your CHA whenever they are hit by an attack while within the consecrated ground.

    Buster’s spell didn’t say anything about cleansing hostile magic, but it wiped out Xim’s inferno all the same. The entire enemy party got a huge boost to their damage reduction, and a hefty boost to their damage on top.

    Righteous damage was devastating against entities profane to the wielder’s god, and I had no idea what god Buster worshipped. There was no good way to know whether we would be considered abhorrent to the tenets of its faith unless Buster decided to drop us an obvious hint.

    Among the things I would consider an obvious hint would be religious symbols, identifiable prayers, or a man’s skeleton tearing its way outside of his own body.

    While Consecration banished Xim’s flames and buffed the Hyrachon’s allies, Buster’s skin bulged and split. Viscera-covered bone dislodged from its fleshy confines, taking the paladin’s armor and massive sword with it.

    I’d seen some nasty shit during my time as a Delver, but that one made my throat tense. I had to force my stomach to keep its contents to itself. I only had an instant to grapple with my rebelling guts before the skeleton exploded from the body, spraying me with hot blood as it charged the short distance between us.

    Its sword glowed with divine light, drawing power from the consecrated ground. I blocked with Gracorvus, stopping the sword without trouble, but a hateful presence invaded my body. I felt it claw through me, disgusted by my sense of mercy, and enraged by any memory where I submitted to authorities greater than myself. This time, the divine judgment did burn.

    HP: 1042 - 897

    What the skeleton left behind reformed into a boneless mass of muscles and skin that somehow remained upright, dressed in small clothes and several items of jewelry. It drew a staff from its inventory.

    On the bright side, Veil and Blue were both still Stunned.

    “Curse in Solitude

    Your love died, not once but thrice

    Wife, bug, phantom, corpse!”

    Explosion! continued to build as I chanted profound phrases, and Fluffy abandoned their pursuit of Xim in favor of flanking me and pummeling my kidneys while I dealt with Buster’s skeleton. I burned through Blessed stacks to offset the damage, unable to block the Yeti without abandoning my defense against the bloody skeleton. Fluffy’s fists pounded through my armor, injecting Righteous damage with each hit.

    HP: 897 - 667

    I was taking the heat off of Xim, and my reward was blunt-force organ removal. Even though my kidneys were reduced to quivering chunks, I wouldn’t bleed to death, which was nice. I considered a change in tactics since Xim’s self-heal was absolutely insane. Before I could suggest that we start juggling aggro, our backup arrived.

    The ceiling over the enemy mages exploded as an enormous Atrocidile maw crashed down through it.

    Nottagator unleashed Titan’s Roar, indiscriminately blasting everyone with a wave of sound and pressure that momentarily overwhelmed Cloaky’s thumping music.

    HP: 667 - 602

    You have resisted Fear!

    “An Atrocidile berserker isn’t ideal backup!”

    [True, but a Ravvenblaq berserker is.]

    Veil snarled and drove his hands into the ground. Runes ran along his arms and legs into the floor, spreading out around us in a blur. The Chovali’s gravity weave had continued to expand over time, and the new runes slotted into the original.

    Xim flew toward Veil, weaving between Nottagator’s back legs as the Atrocidile rampaged. It roared in frustration, unable to hit the evasive Yeti. Fluffy could do little more than dodge, hitting Nottagator with the occasional glancing blow that only further enraged the Atrocidile.

    Xim drew in close to Veil while Varrin distracted the skeleton, but the flesh suit drove its staff toward her, encasing her in a golden sphere. Spears of light skewered into Xim. The cleric swung her scepter into the barrier, filling it with crimson flame until it burst, her body lighting up as she healed the damage she’d suffered.

    The wounds diminished but refused to close. Blood poured out from the cleric’s extra holes, streaming through the air to the flesh suit, which absorbed the liquid to regain the mass it lost resurrecting the mages. Xim was forced to pull back and use Cleanse, staunching the flow. I teleported to the meat bag and dropped Elemental Barrier, catching the boneless one, the Giant, and the Chovali in the AoE.

    The air shook violently, knocking the mages to the ground and interrupting the flesh bag’s telekinetic vampirism. Blue pulled out an orb and crushed it, sending out a pulse of countermagic and dispelling my attack. The Chovali threw a talisman, which thunked onto my armor and stuck like a magnet.

    You are Immobilized!

    I mean, you were already Immobilized by your own skill, but now you’re Immobilized again!

    I felt the familiar pull of a hostile teleport, which attempted to sling me into Nottagator’s face. My resistance to non-consensual Dimensional effects kicked in, ending the teleport early. I wound up beneath the Atrocidile, between its legs, and I brought up Gracorvus to knock aside a bucking set of talons.

    Throughout it all, I kept chanting.

    “Roach with hardened shell

    Still ran from my boot in fear

    Satisfying crunch!”

    Veil resumed pumping runes into the ground, staring at me with murder in his eyes.

    The Chovali’s weaves were insufferable. They weren’t skills that could be easily Dispelled, instead having the feel of prepared items like Nuralie’s poisons. I’d need time and focus to unravel them, which I didn’t have. They still drew mana from the Chovali to power them, which made them less robust than a traditional weave. Regardless, they were a lot more durable than a normal spell.

    Veil’s weave pulsed, twisting space and delivering a piercing pain to my skull, like someone had driven a railroad spike through my temple. Varrin and Xim were caught in the gravity effect, being yanked to the opposite side of the drawing room, away from Veil. Gravity Anchor once again kept me in place against the first effect’s pull, but it didn’t help with the second.

    HP: 392 - 204

    You have been Paralyzed!

    While the Chovali locked us down, Blue raised his arms to the sky. I couldn’t look above me–both because I was physically incapable of it and because there was a wall of Nottagator in the way–but the dark rooms lit up like it was high noon on a cloudless day. A withering heat began to build until it was hot enough to make the rubble smolder.

    Being Paralyzed kept me from doing anything physical, but it wouldn’t stop me from utilizing skills that didn’t require me to move my body. I could still channel Explosion!, although I couldn’t snap my fingers to activate it. I could also maintain my Shielding aura.

    And I could still use Reverse Card.

    I seized the Giant’s spell as he finished his cast. At first, I thought the redirect had failed. It cost zero mana to take control of it, which didn’t make sense. Reverse Card’s cost was equal to the mana spent by the caster. However, Reverse Card did work, which meant the spell had cost... nothing?

    A 20-foot-wide beam of scorching light descended from above, centered on the Giant. Blue’s eyes went wide, and the wastelanders abandoned him to his fate.

    Veil teleported deep into the ballroom. Buster’s flesh bag tore off its amulet and held it aloft. The pendant disintegrated, surrounding both the skeleton and its calcium-deprived brother in a thick layer of blood. Xim hunkered down behind her shield and Varrin stood in front of her with blade ready, both having resisted the paralysis with one of their evolutions. I clenched and hoped for the best.

    The Giant didn’t react in time.

    The beam struck like the hand of God, tearing everything within fifty feet of Blue to pieces and then igniting it. The bloody barrier around Buster’s two halves boiled. Varrin rended the air with his blade, splitting the apocalyptic attack and driving it to either side, creating a narrow wedge of calm for himself and Xim. The wooden floor became smoke, the stone beneath the wood turned molten, and the liquid rock bubbled, spitting noxious fumes. Blue’s skin peeled away and the flesh beneath blackened.

    Nottagator roared as its entire back half was soaked in flame. The Atrocidile’s body protected me from the worst of the attack, but my eyes were flash-dried and my gambeson began to burn as my armor turned into a furnace. Spell-based elemental fire was nearly my highest defense, however, and despite being deeply uncomfortable, I avoided taking damage.

    The beam terminated when the life of its caster was spent, and Blue’s smoking body fell into the slag.