Mage Tank

I didn’t think too hard about Grotto’s request for me to join him in watching randos invading my dimensional space. I simply grumbled my acceptance and was teleported to a part of the Closet I’d never seen.
It was a tight space, about the size of a small bedroom, with a miniature Delve obelisk atop a pedestal at its center. There were no doors or other entrances, and the only light in the room came from glowing text crawling across dozens of slates on the wall. Grotto’s eyes studied one of the displays, feelers undulating.
I thought to my familiar.
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I sensed a hint of defensiveness in his response. To be fair to Grotto’s past self, he’d been required to be inside the obelisk to operate The Toxic Grotto. He only gained the ability to manage a Delve remotely upon his assignment as administrator of The Calvani Caverns outside of The Cage, whereupon he swiftly used his new authority to execute his fellow Delve Core Nasro before the entity could further assist Orexis in defiling the System.
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I raised an eyebrow and focused on using Shortcut with Coordinated Thinker, searching for a nearby space large enough to teleport to safely. My awareness couldn’t leave the room.
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I glanced at the pillar in the room’s center, then back at Grotto.
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I did my best to stay annoyed at Grotto for intentionally allowing intruders into the Closet but found myself curious.
Grotto’s dark eyes turned to me.
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I frowned but placed my hand on the pillar and shut my eyes, trying to concentrate on viewing a party of Delvers within my halls. I got some uncomfortable psychic feedback.
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I relaxed, and my perception divorced itself from my body. The world stuttered a few times until I found myself looking down at a cavern made of dark stone, with a jagged, irregular floor. There was a group of Delvers standing in a loose 3-point triangle formation, with a woman at its center.
My Soul-Sight still worked while viewing the Delve-given perspective, and I could tell this group was level 15, all gold. The four of them were clad head to toe in armor, hiding their features, but I could tell from the shape of their helms and the general litheness of their bodies that they were a group of Littans. In fact, when I looked closely at their souls, they were familiar.
I thought to Grotto. It was the Littan we’d met after emerging from the Descent.
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I was enjoying Grotto’s new level of transparency.
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I reserved judgment until I saw what was handed out. I couldn’t have the System cribbing my work. Then again, I assumed that’s what
did every time I accepted a System skill.
The group of 4 were standing at the ready but weren’t speaking or making any preparations that I could see.
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I gave Grotto’s instruction a shot, and my point of view began floating down from the ceiling high above until I was in front of the group, only a few feet away. They were all keeping a close watch on the dark environment, doing their best to stay silent and still.
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The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
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I floated around the group in a wide arc, studying each in turn and trying to size them up. I knew I could handle a Grade 14 monster alone without trouble, although a level 15 Delver might be more difficult. Not to be immodest, but I still thought it would be easy unless they were stat monsters like myself or the other party members. Of course, I’d gained
stats and some new abilities since my last real combat, so it was possible I could solo a handful of ordinary level 15s. A full party? Probably not, unless they were bad. Then again, this wasn’t a full party.
At the front was a male Littan in heavy plate, holding a large roundshield that went from knee to shoulder. He had a two-handed warhammer gripped in one hand, shaft balanced on his shoulder. It probably weighed as much as I did.
To his right was a man wearing a heavy black coat over a suit of chainmail. He was unarmed but was studying a book written in the mind-shattering Celestial language. Its pages turned lazily on their own.
To the left was a woman in leathers dyed black, wearing a red, honest-to-goodness cape, which hung down to her ankles. She flipped a small throwing knife from one hand to the other, with no other armaments I could see.
In the middle was Captain Pio dressed in a set of bronze Madrin scale. She had a smaller roundshield with the crest of the Littan military on its face, and held a wand pointed toward the floor, her eyes flitting back and forth between party members. Her face went through a few expressions that didn’t make sense until I realized what was happening.
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I got the vague impression that Grotto was searching the Delve, and I watched the group stand around for another few minutes. I hadn’t known what to expect from this experience, but I hadn’t expected to be bored.
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Last I’d checked, the hounds had been Aberrant, not Abyssal. I assumed it had been an upgrade.
I tried out mentally commanding my view to swap to what Grotto was seeing and was pleased with myself when it worked. I was now looking down at the room I affectionately called the Dog Pound, where a horde of two dozen Grade 12 Abyssal Hounds made their home. They were the size of large wolves, with knotted muscle coiling below slick, oily skin, and were currently tearing one of their members into pieces.
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I focused on the hound currently having its entrails pulled out by the vicious horde and brought up its notifications.
I ignored the rest of the damage notifications. It appeared the group’s stealth fighter was a curse mage of some sort. Nasty. I brought up statuses for the other hounds, finding that all of them had at least 1 stack of Cursed.
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One of the largest hounds–as tall as a full-grown man–raised its head and released a baleful cry.
The hounds began charging, bodies blurring across the massive chamber they occupied toward the Littan party in the entry cavern. The hounds blinked in and out of existence, making short-range teleports to boost their already near-supersonic speeds.
The heavy-armored Littan was already striding forward, shifting his hammer off his shoulder.
The moment the hounds began materializing through the narrow entryway between the two rooms, Sgt Guar burst forward, the air cracking in complaint.
He was even faster than the hounds.
Guar appeared in the middle of the pack, whirling the massive hammer in an arc around him, driving it into four of the beasts. All of them were sent crashing into the ground.
There was a brief flash of light and Sgt Guar’s body shone like he’d been showered in glitter. All the hounds teleporting into the cavern rounded on him, several doing a full 180 from their charge on the party’s other 3 members.
The hounds began leaping forward, their bodies distorting unnaturally as they warped space to try and bite at the Littan around his shield. Most of them were not successful.
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Guar spun again, twice as fast this time, and hit a dozen hounds with his hammer. Then his body rotated even faster, and his hammer grew half again in length, pulping the hounds he’d already hit and sending the rest skittering across the rough cavern floor.
I mentally requested that the System append a random name to each Abyssal Hound, and was not disappointed.
The other Littans had yet to make a move, although I noticed the bookworm raise a hand toward Sgt Guar once it looked like the hounds were backing off.
Sgt Baltae made a fist, and space twisted around the heavily armored Guar. Every hound within 15 feet of the hammerman was crushed into the ground, then sucked toward him, forcing their bodies through Dimensional contortions. Bones snapped as the force mangled limbs and spines.
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The slaughter continued until only the Alpha remained.
So far, the Littans hadn’t done anything too special. Unless you consider letting the tank solo an entire pack of two dozen Grade 12s with only 1 spell assist from the Dimensional mage special. It didn’t look like Guar was taking any damage either.
Neither Pio nor the woman tossing her throwing dagger around had made any moves, and I also hadn’t seen anything new from the hidden stealth member. Overall, this fight had shown me they were competent, but the best thing I’d gotten out of it was seeing that Suction Bomb spell.
That is, until knife lady fucking flew into the Alpha like Superman.
Lt Madel opened by
Alpha Alfalfa right in the eye, caving in the Hound’s ocular cavity and sending the 400-pound beast stumbling. Then her dagger–which she’d thrown before she started flying–skewered Alfalfa
, disappearing into its face.
A glistening black shortsword appeared in her right hand which she used to slit Alfalfa’s throat, then she hit him in the temple with the spike of a golden hammer that came from some-
where, and her right hand now held a blood-red spear that was
and the dagger was back in her left hand–nope, there it goes–she threw it into the throat wound.
In 3 seconds, Alfalfa lost 913 health and was taking 57 damage a second from sizzling wounds that dumped blood like an upturned gallon jug of milk and went black faster than a stale piece of toast in a bonfire as rot festered at 100,000 times speed.
Alfalfa let out a gurgled cry and cracks formed in reality around its assailant, but Lt Madel flowed around them like a butterfly made of liquid silk, then disappeared. A spray of blood went up from Alfalfa’s back, where Madel now stood, her dark blade buried into the base of the hound’s skull.
Alpha Alfalfa lurched once, then collapsed, and a final wet whimper sputtered out through its opened throat.