timewalk

  Aliandra

  Ali trudged along with her friends as led them deeper into the jungle, carefully p the wild, chaotiature-affinity mana that infused everything around her. It roiled, twisted, and washed across them as they moved, dense enough to appear murky to her mana sight. Gone were all but the fai vestiges of the light affinity mana they had entered iher dire, and so too were the majority of the light-affinity bugs, monsters, and elementals. Apart from the occasional appearance of flying creatures above the opy, down here in the dense, damp rown jungle, nature ruled with a cloying, sweaty, moss-ridden grip.

  “This pce is like a sauna,” Mato grumbled.

  “We’re not going back till we find Ali anuardian,” Malika replied, wiping sweat from her brow.

  It had taken about an hour of rest before Mato and Malika had felt well enough to tinue, and now the two of them seemed entirely back to normal – at least, they were eiough to be discussing various strategies for handling the Forest Guardians was off hunting for them.

  “Thanks f,” Ali said. She hadn’t expected everyoo be so enthusiastic about findihe final Forest Guardian to destruct that might earhe imprint, but all it had taken was a simple mention that she was close before everyone wao be involved. Exploration was all good and well, she supposed, but having the shared goal of hunting a guardian for her book seemed to breathe a bit of eic excitement into her friends.

  “Not a problem, Ali. It’ll be fun!” Mato decred, swiping his hand at the cloud of pebble-sized greeles that were buzzing around his head.

  Ali ducked sharply as a glowing nature wisp zipped past, almost colliding with her face. The tiny glowing mana creatures were being noticeably more numerous, often clustering by the dozens in trees where the may was marginally higher. Ali had even witnessed several spontaneously maing directly from the ambient mana itself – ahat, as far as she knew, was something rare enough that few schors had ever wit.

  “I wish it wasn’t quite so humid and mucky down here,” she said, brushing the gossamer threads of another spiderweb from her fad hair for the thousandth time, w if she would ever again be and dry. Amid the raucous, incessant calls of the is and frogs, the cloying humid air that felt like breathing pea soup, and the muddy dirt and moss they trudged through, Ali began to believe she would be halluating visions of the bathhouse before much longer.

  It was right when she was imagining immersing herself slowly in a hot tub of water that suddenly reappeared, startling her into stepping ankle-deep into a puddle of mud. Ugh, not again. At least it couldn’t make her any dirtier than before. I don’t want to think about whatever just squelched between my toes, anyways…

  “I found a Forest Guardian for you, up ahead by a small pond,” announced. “But there’s a problem.”

  “More mushroom guys?” Mato asked.

  “No, the flower ones, but the problem is there are two Guardians.”

  “Two?” Ali excimed. The giant regeing elementals were dangerous enough on their own, a, she wao make them so much she could almost taste it.

  “That might be problematic,” Malika said, eg Ali’s s. “It’ll be hard enough fighting blind ial storm, but I’m not sure if we have enough firepower to kill two Guardians healing each other. We might want to skip them.”

  “They’re level thirty-eight and thirty-six,” added. “It’s not a lot lower, but they’re the lowest-level Guardians we’ve seen so far.”

  “What if I make a couple more Fire Mages and fireball the petals? Fire seems to work well against the guardians too.” Ali knew she wasly objective in this discussion, but she also didn’t want to spend another hour trudging through the jungle and potentially not finding the guardian she needed for her Grimoire. Especially whewo were right here.

  “What happeo the Ali who was terrified of fireballing Mato?” Malika asked with an amused grin on her face.

  “He take it,” Ali replied, drawing a deep chuckle and a mock-buffet from the big Beastkin. “Seriously though, I think it’s our best shot, they’re all made of wood, so fire seems to be the best choice. It might even help with the roots and vines.”

  “Oi, I’m the one who has to tank the fireballs with my face,” Mato grumbled.

  “Do you really mind?” Ali asked. She had carefully sidered her options, and she had cluded that fire was very much the right choice. Storm Shama good damage with their lightning, but they were less effective when they couldn’t fight in melee rahe nature elementals seemed immuo her wyvern’s poisoh so they were out too. No, fireball was defihe best solution, so why were her friends ughing?

  Am I turning into a pyromaniac? Is it still pyromania if Fireball is really the best choice?

  “No, I don’t mind, I say we try it,” Mato chuckled. “I’ll take getting burnt a bit over being blind the whole fight.”

  “Just call it out as usual so I dodge out of the bst radius,” Malika said finally relenting. “And maybe make another healer, it’s hard enough to move around in all that pnt growth. I separate out the Floral Menaces and tank them outside the regeion auras if Mato tank both the elementals.”

  “Works for me,” Mato said.

  And just like that, they made their decision. Ali summoned a couple more Fire Mages and an Acolyte as an undercurrent of excitement began to build within her. Excitement that she might soon have the guardian, but simultaneously nervous that her desire might be getting them in a little over their heads. She double-checked her iory to make sure her Potion of Recall was easily accessible. As soon as she was ready, they followed to a clearing up ahead where he had scouted their prey.

  In the dappled light, two slightly smaller Forest Guardians slowly patrolled beside a small creek. Smaller, but only retive to their enormous kin. Scampering around their giant stump-like feet were six of the woody Floral Menace flower monsters. They were indistinguishable from the ohey had faced previously other than the fact that some of them sported purple petal scruffs instead of pink, a differehat Ali was almost certain wouldn’t matter.

  “I won’t be able to move them much,” Mato said, quietly surveying the monsters out past the trees they were crouched behind.

  “I think just tank them over there by the pond,” suggested. “That should give us enough room. Ali and I set up here.”

  Ali he spot had selected was a little elevated and there was a nice break irees giving clear visibility onto what would soon bee the battlefield.

  “Ok,” Mato answered, his body twisting and ref, growing more massive. His transformation magic seemed to ripple out from his core, reshaping him from within, as if it were somehow twisting his muscles and bones.

  I suppose that’s precisely what is happening, Ali thought, studying the effect closely, trying to catch a glimpse of how it worked. Every time her Are Insight e of Learning grew, she felt she could unravel a little more of the details of the everyday magic her friends were wielding. However, while this ability was clearly reted to Mato’s nature affinity, the way it worked was mostly hidden from her sight. From what Mato had shared, Ali knew his shapeshifting ability owered by stamina, not mana – a so-called ‘martial ability’. While it was clearly magic, her senses and perception skills were blind to the ws of stamina.

  In moments, his transformation into a heavy, rge bear was plete, ariggered another skill powered by the invisible energy of his stamina, causing him to accelerate his massive bulk out into the clearing, engaging the mohere with a roar and a crash, joined moments ter by Malika, sprinting in right behind him.

  “Spread out, Firebolt the Floral Menace,” Ali instructed, speaking draic for the be of her mages, and pig a on target. Her potent army of Kobold pyromaniacs quickly scrambled into a loose curved formation, each of them fring with the angry red of fire mana.

  “Attack,” she anded mentally, sending her io the several Scalding Slimes waiting beside her. Her army was rather specifically tailored for this fight. Slimes were immuo roots, and so she had no other melee minions. Her only other minion type was the group of three Acolytes of Azryet standing loosely around her, already supp Mato and Malika with their holy healing magic without needing her explicit and.

  She made a few minor adjustments, ensuring her minions remained within range of her enha auras while she studied the magic flowing through the battlefield. One handy side-effect of her Are Insight was she could see the glow of her Empowered Summoner and the flickers of green nature damage it granted her minions when they were in range. Makes setting up much easier. She could also see the pervasive twin auras of the Forest Guardians – regeion and growth – denser and more potent now with two of them. And flowing like a trill above it all, was the trickle of nature magifusing the ground with the growth of tless tiny wildflowers.

  Ali studied the magic closely, waiting for the telltale trigger, and sure enough, as soon as the sea of wildflowers had finished sprouting, mana fred sharply from the Floral Menace monsters, and the etlefield erupted into a dense cloud of pink and purple petals that instantly obscured everything.

  “Fireball!” Ali’s warning also served as her mental and to the grinning Kobold Fire Mage she had selected. Fme and mana densed quickly, f into the easily reizable roiling ball of fire before shooting out across the battlefield and into the ter of the petal storm. Malika’s lithe, agile body emerged from the cloud in a high backflip at the same instant that the fireball ehe storm and for a fra of a sed Ali began to smile at how elegantly she had judged the timing.

  Deep within the heart of the petal storm, a malevolent all-ing red bze ignited, cutting through the petals. A shog, angry fme burst with an iy that left the entire clearing darkened and rendered Malika a mere silhouette suspended against the backlit radiant glow.

  Ali’s eyes widened as her smile ed into surprise and shock. A pressure wave of dust, ash, and fme bsted out through the cloud, and she had barely enough time to throw a barrier up in front of her before the explosion ripped through the entire clearing. Her ears burst painfully as her barrier cracked instantly. Malika vanished and all her minions were ko the ground as the jungle rang with the fsh-bst of fme.

  Ali rolled over and sat up. She couldn’t hear a thing unless she ted the painful ringing inside her head from where her sense of hearing had once been. The clearing was a se of total devastation, burned grass and tree branches y smoking on the ground, dotted among pockets of still-burning fme. Mato still struggled against the two Forest Guardians out where the small pond used to be, amid a soft rain of ash and slowly dissipating smoke. There was no sign of any of the Floral Menaces, nor her slimes, and as she gazed about, she found her Kobolds slowly stirring aing to their feet. One of her Acolytes gnced her way, and Ali saw the formation of her holy restoration spell before she felt the gentle healing magic begin to work to restore her hearing and the seared burns on her skin.

  “Heal Mato,” she managed, her voice distorted by her damaged hearing. Slowly she cmbered to her feet and stared at the ragged remnants of the barrier magic that had saved her from serious injury. It had been quite a while since she had entered anything powerful enough to break her magic.

  Malika dropped out of a tree nearby, nding on the balls of her feet, and sprinted off to join Mato. As the holy magic pulsed withihe ringing slowly faded, repced by the roars, thumps, and crashes of bat.

  What the fuck was that?

  Whatever had just happened had been way more powerful than just a regur fireball, and she had seen absolutely no sign of forewarning in her mana sight. The entire clearing had been ied by the bst, enough heat and fme to clear the vegetation, vaporize the pond, and kill all the lower-level monsters and minions in the area instantly.

  At least the petals were ied too. Her eyes were drawn again to the softly floating ash, falling like gray snow, and in a sudden fsh of crity, she uood. A mundane explosion… The air had been filled with petals in an enormous cloud of easily ignited fuel. Her Fireball had simply been the spark that ighe fgration.

  “Ali, adds! Behind you!”

  At the urgent sound of ’s shout, and the intense surge in his mana as he triggered Righteous Fury, Ali spun about to find several of the misshapen Spore Spreaders lumbering out of the jungle undergrowth directly toward her on their strangely awkward three-armed gait. Violet mushrooms were already sprouting from the ground all around them. From the shuffling sounds deeper in the jungle, more were inbound, clearly drawn by the empowered fireball explosion she had detonated.

  Ugh, that could have goer…

  She threw up a barrier, knowing it would be no help against the spores as the monsters phemselves, quivering, in the middle of the glowing sea of mushrooms. Suddenly she remembered her brand-new spell. With a thought, and a few points of mana, she instantaneously switched pces with her farthest Fire Mage, right as the Violet Dreamclouds began to burst. Two of her mages caught in the circle colpsed instantly, unscious as the spore cloud billowed up from the exploding mushroom carpet.

  “Fireballs,” Ali anded. Her two unsages would be out of ission for lohan the duration of the fight, so it was worthless trying to recover them. Instead, all her remaining mages readied their magic. I just hope the spore cloud doesn’t blow up, too, Ali thought. She didn’t trust it though, putting up a new barrier anyway, but she did unleash her are bolt streams, pig separate targets for each, adding her personal damage to the inteream of ’s overcharged arrows.

  The simultaneous proximate detonations of the fireballs burst her eardrums for the sed time this fight, sending pain ng deep into her head, but her barrier magic protected her from the brunt of the fme aing shockwave. The cloud of spores had been ied, but fortunately, she hadn’t set off an unpreted monstrous detonation this time. But within the cloud of fme and slowly clearing smoke, she could still see the magic of the fungus monsters summoning more mushrooms, and still more joining the fray.

  “Again,” she instructed – a and which was met with eager aed smiles and fring fire mana. The only hing about the uedly rge fireball earlier was that it had wiped out most of the monsters instantly, leaving just the massive guardians alive. Maybe I should search for a monster with a more powerful fireball sometime.

  She called for more and more volleys of fireballs as the horde of Spore Spreaders tinued p out from the jungle, weaving her arg Are Bolt streams around ’s arrows and through the fire and smoke.

  Ali gnced back at Mato, but it seemed that Malika was keeping him alive through the distra.

  Do I have enough mana potions? Her Fire Mages had to be running low – their Fireballs were ly cheap, and while she couldn’t tell exactly how much mana they were using, just the potend size of the mana formations they created with their magic told her it was a lot.

  “That’s the st one,” said suddenly, downing a mana potion, and drawitention to the now still undergrowth betweerees beyond the expanse of charred ground and burned corpses. “Lower-level guardian first.”

  Ali turned her attention back to the tral fight – a titanic battle between the bear and the muassive Forest Guardians, with Malika dang around iween pung and healing. The battle was a broad circle of verdant growth amid the charred aated ruins of the jungle clearing. Both Mato and Malika appeared to be struggling with the grasping roots and vines bing the area with new life – although Malika was having a better time of things, her light steps dang off the air more often than not to avoid the roots.

  “Firebolts.” The two Forest Guardians appeared to be in perfect health, having rapidly regeed any damage sustained from the massive bst and whatever damage Mato and Malika were dishing out.

  But the Forest Guardian seemed entirely ued. The firebolts were nding, and they were ripping holes in the bark armor and the dense wood, leaving smoking holes in their wake. The problem was the holes were closing up in seds, wood twisting and growing over the damage, filling the holes and leaving the monster in pristih even uhe tinuous bombardment of magid arrows.

  This looks hard. Ali studied her beleaguered forces. “I’m not delivering enough damage,” she said. She had lost more than half her minions already, two mages to the mushrooms, and all her Scalding Slimes to the explosion. Her four remaining mages ime to recover their mana before they could let loose.

  “ you make some more?” asked.

  The first one required five mages, she thought, her miurning to their first enter with a Forest Guardian. She had had to summon mages mid-bat because their entire damage output had been insuffit to overe the regeion aura. They had all leveled up sihen, and the elementals were a little lower level, but against two of those auras, even Ali could see the firebolts were not leaving any sting damage in the face of the double regeion aura.

  Even when she had killed the kited guardian with her are bolt storm, she had required several minutes of steam-jet assault t its health down te where her attack could finish it off. She didn’t have that luxury here.

  “I ime to summon more mages.” But of course, she was low on mana too. A quick mental perspective shift firmed that she was down to only totions.

  “I have about six minutes on my recharge,” offered.

  “Got it.” Ali retrieved her totions, making her decision. When ’s Righteous Fury became avaible, she would need as much damage as she could muster.

  “Mato, Malika, serve your resources,” yelled, sharing their strategy shift. “Malika, target their mana.”

  “Got it,” Malika shouted back, and the flickers of her punches shifted to a deeper blue color.

  Quickly, Ali anized her remaining forces, setting up a rotation of one-off, and two-on for her Acolytes, to allow them to rotate with their mana regeion skill. She hahe two highest-level Fire Mages a mana potion each, instrug them to drink and serve mana for now, and then scrambled across the charred ground in search of Spore Spreader corpses, filling up her mana pool by destrug several of them.

  Ign the crashes and roars of bat, she pulled out her Grimoire and focused on her magitent on summoning as many Kobold Fire Mages as she could manage in the short time avaible.

  “Ready,” called out, much soohan Ali would have liked. She had mawo more mages, and her Grimoire was still glowing with the magic that would struct the third.

  “Almost there,” she told him, urging him to hold off for a little longer. Even though her new powerful ization upgrade seemed to be allowio bias her summoning toward higher-level variants, the two mages she had just summoned were uo be enough to ch the battle. While waited, her magic fred, and with a rush of mana, it pleted.

  Mage – Kobold – level 19 (Fire)

  Your reserved mana has increased by +76.

  Oh, thank goodness, she thought, as she saw the level of her summon. It brought her total to seven mages. She made a mental o study her Grimoire ization in more detail to see if she could learer trol over the monster level produced. If she was going to tinue being forced to summon monsters in bat, she o find a way to reduce the randomness – gambling with her power was certain to get them killed at some point.

  “Go,” Ali said. She hadn’t expected to have the time to make gear for her new mages, but somehow all three Fire Mages had appeared wearing some sort of robe she reized from her Grimoire. Another nuany ization upgrade? Bit busy right now, she reminded herself.

  flipped a gold into the air, making it vanish in a tiny shower of sparks, before he ighe mana inside himself, his Righteous Fury making his body shine like a mini-sun in Ali’s mana sight.

  “Fire!” Ali anded, reinf her draic words with the full sense of both meanings, and the urgeo go all out. She followed her own ands, unleashing three streams of Are Bolts at the targeted Forest Guardian, and eschewing even her own prote in favor of sharpened shards of barrier magic, trying desperately to eke out the most damage she was capable of.

  Are we winning? Firebolts flew in a stant barrage, making the wood elemental smoke and burn. Even Malika had leapt up on top of the Forest Guardian’s baleashing a fury of flickering punches, giving up entirely on healing in favor of draining as much of the elemental’s mana as she could. But it all came down to ’s powerful skill, and the thirty seds of fury and the devastating hail of arrows. If they failed to do enough damage, the monster would simply heal again.

  She couldn’t help ting the seds, as she burhrough her mana with reckless abandon. They were definitely hurting the monster now, massive rents appeared in the armor due to Mato’s powerful strikes, immediately exploited by and her Fire Mages for additional damage. Smoke billowed up from the many holes bored into its fnks by fire magic. But as the seds ticked by, the monster remaianding.

  Abruptly, the intense fre of light to her side dimmed, and at the same moment, the Forest Guardian roared in fury, spinning toward whose skill had just expired.

  “Shit!” excimed.

  “It wasn’t enough?” Ali gasped. She couldn’t believe it – the monster had to be nearly dead – it looked so battered and burnt that it seemed like it should just fall over. Instead, it charged toward , suddenly deg that he was the most dangerous threat.

  In the briefest fra of a sed when it threw itself forward, Mato’s paw blurred, eg with the ripping, tearing sound of a tree trunk splitting. The giant Forest Guardian mawo earth-shaking steps toward before its entire bulk came crashing to the ground, tearing a deep furrow several meters long in the scorched earth before the thick roots from Mato’s skill halted its momentum.

  Ali’s notification chime sounded. What the…

  Yroup has defeated Forest Guardian – Wood Elemental – level 36 (Nature)

  let out a shuddering sigh of relief.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Ali whispered. While the fight was by no means over, and they would still o defeat the final guardian without the aid of ’s Righteous Fury, at least now they would not o tend with two simultaneeion auras.

  “Thought I was going to have to run again for a mihere,” observed.

  Malika leapt up off the fallen Guardian and unleashed her relentless attacks upon the remaining Elemental.

  “Switch,” Ali anded, and as her mages retargeted to the final Forest Guardian, she settled in for a long fight. Even against the full power of all her Fire Mages, and their damage, Ali could see the pulsing of the Forest Guardian’s potent regeion aura as it worked relentlessly to recover the damage they were inflig.

  But eventually, they wore it down.

  Yroup has defeated Forest Guardian – Wood Elemental – level 38 (Nature)

  “About time,” Malika said, her voice sounding just as exhausted as Ali felt.

  “Man, these things are nuts,” Mato answered, transf back to his normal self. “That first one must have been running on oh point or… I don’t know. It took a crazy amount of damage.”

  “They sure are unreasonably robust,” agreed.

  It had takehing they could throw at the monsters, and they had barely succeeded. Without Mato’s retaliation, they might not have killed the first Guardian at all.

  “Sorry,” Ali told them. “I thought we had enough damage to kill two. Perhaps we shouldn’t try that again until we’re a bit stronger?” The fight had been an unnecessary risk due tero gain the Forest Guardian imprint. The smarter choice would have been patience. “We should have waited till scouted out a single monster.”

  “It’s ok, Ali.” Malika gave her a tired smile. “Yes, it was close, but we all agreed to the fight.”

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” Mato said, looking at Ali with an expression of anticipation. Ali returned his gaze, puzzled at his meaning, and then he simply poi the giant corpse behind him. “Go get it?”

  “Oh.” Oh! With a sudden surge of excitement, as she remembered the purpose for their taking the risk on this fight, she rushed over to where Mato stood, and destructed the massive elemental, impatiently urging her magic to go faster.

  Please please please work… She had so maions riding on this that she struggled to eveify what exactly she was feeling. So much hinged oher she could even learn it, or if it would summon properly.

  Variant: Forest Guardian added to Imprint: Elemental.

  “I got the imprint…” Instead of calming her down, her success pushed her emotions to an almost unbearable iy.

  What if it doesn’t work? She had so many examples of imprints that had proved to be an enormous disappoi. Her Piercer Scorpions that summoned dead, or all the light elementals she had learhat she was uo use. Even the skeleton imprint she had tried had been a failure. She didn’t want to think about the trauma she had felt over her book imprint.

  She opened her Grimoire and turo the Elemental chapter; acutely aware she was the ter of attention. Everyone was ied in this, and Ali wasn’t sure what she would do when it failed.

  If it fails, she forced herself to admit the possibility of it succeeding and eled her magic.

  It erhaps the lo several minutes she could remember experieng. She kept her focus on her magic, trying to pretend her emotions were not there, but her body was trembling by the time her magially finished, and tears pricked at the er of her eyes.

  Forest Guardian – Wood Elemental – level 37 (Nature)

  Your reserved mana has increased by +254.

  The giant Elemental appeared with an abrupt suddehat made Ali take an involuntary step backward. It towered over her, truly an intimidating presence so close. A heavy draw settled onto her mana pool. She stared at the monstrous elemental for several moments, fully expeg it to colpse, evaporate, or somehow vanish. The enormous head turned slowly toward her, setting her heart pounding in her chest, and the deep-set glowing green eyes fixed her with their gaze. From deep within the monster’s massive body, a low-pitched rumble emerged, felt within her body as a tactile pressure vibration through the very air, sending flickers of fear and apprehension through her.

  It's alive.

  “Holy shit,” whispered.

  “Yes!” Mato yelled, dang about on the charred ground.

  Dad… For a moment, Ali saw the memory of her father standio the creature and she thought her heart would break. She choked up and her eyes welled with tears, but she blihem back, allowing the memory to slowly fade. All that remained was his memory and the legacy of his enormous Elementals that were now hers to summon.

  “Good work, Ali,” Malika said, regarding her with knowing eyes.

  “Thanks, Malika,” Ali mahrough the lump ihroat.

  She walked toward it and reached out and touched the rough, thick protective bark on the monster’s deferentially lowered head – a head that dwarfed her entire body.

  Thanks, Dad… this is for you.

  timewalk