Healer Arc 2 -- Chapter 40

Chapter 40

Thaden felt like a mountain was sitting on his back, keeping him squished against the dirt of the hole he’d found himself in not too long before.  Unable to see anything going on around him, he slowly crawled up the side of the hole, the effort involved just as colossal as the size of the monsters forcing their Level Compression down on him.  He had almost entirely forgotten about the annoying phenomenon, as he hadn’t encountered it yet on Plangea, but he could only assume that the rules on this planet was different than Tarth, and there was a threshold a monster had to top in order for it to affect him.

And it was greatly affecting him at the moment.

As he pulled himself to the edge of the hole, which had been formed by the explosion of hundreds of energy beams all converging on him that came from the Behemoth Gorams, he knew he was lucky to be alive.  It was only when he saw them charging up that he made the decision to drop Celestial Spiritual Enhancement Aura activate Major Damage Transfer, which took a few seconds, but it happened just barely in time.  When the beams hit him, all of the damage was transferred to his controlled targets, as it seemed as though his bonuses allowed a full 100% of the damage he took shunted off of him, divided equally among those he controlled.  Unfortunately, Sadia hadn’t been similarly covered for some reason, perhaps because the spell didn’t consider her to be part of his actual Party, and so had been destroyed in the subsequent explosion.  He was sure that there was a note in his messages that would tell him that it would take another 12 hours or so before she could reform, but there was no way he was going to open them at that point; he didn’t need the distractions opening his messages would inevitably cause.

Regardless, she wasn’t dead forever, only for a short time.  As long as he survived, of course, which was looking less likely by the moment.

When he could finally see out of the hole by turning his head through monumental effort, he saw the closest Goram Colossus approaching at incredible speed, looking like a small mountain being tossed at him by a giant.  There’s no way I can survive that, even if my minions can manage to kill it quickly.  He was immediately expecting it to run over them, stomping him into Thaden-jelly with a foot that was as wide as an ancient sequoia tree.  Even with his high Health, he had no real defenses against the amount of damage that would inflict upon him, as the amount of damage he would take was essentially the inverse of how much damage he could do to it.  It wasn’t quite that bad, though, because while he might only be able to do a fraction of a percent of his normal damage to the enormous Goram, it would probably do 10 times its normal damage output to him because of the Level differential.

It was only when Thaden began to see a greenish fog filling the air around him that he began to have some hope.  While he hadn’t seen it before on Plangea, he knew exactly what it was because it had shown up on Tarth when he was facing the World Bosses.  In short, it was the manifestation of one of his Fortunate Catastrophe traits:

Fortuity will now have a visible, tangible effect when facing hostile targets 90+ Levels higher than the Fortunate Catastrophe

His Fortuity was now playing an active role in the fight, and he watched in glee as a part of the greenish fog coalesced around the rushing Goram Colossus’ front legs, condensing just long enough to trip it.  He watched as it fell head over heels, slamming into and crushing around 100 of his controlled minions, who all leeched Health from it simultaneously, while also reflecting 10% of the damage they took as magical damage thanks to a Thrall Commander trait, killing it instantly.  He couldn’t see it fly off behind him, as he couldn’t turn his head in time, but he winced as he heard it hit something in the city, hoping that it didn’t hurt anyone.  Unfortunately, he felt a few people in his Raid Party wink out of existence shortly thereafter, though he couldn’t right away who it was.

Instead, his attention was on his crushed minions, who all appeared to make a full recovery despite being splattered along the ground, as their automatic healing and Major Healing Assistant played a role in bringing them back up to full Health, as well as the ongoing Celestial Regeneration that was still active for a little while longer.

With them back in action, Thaden just hoped that they would be enough as two more of the Goram Colossi approached, running next to each other as if they were in a race.  He saw his Fortuity in action once again, as a subtle push on the leg of one of the running Colossi caused it to swerve into the other, causing them to tumble away, crashing into three others that were rushing from another direction.  All 5 of them hit with such force that it shook the ground even more than it already was, and the overlapping cracks that occurred from the impacts deafened him for a few seconds before the deafness faded.  He wasn’t sure if they had killed each other, as he couldn’t see where they ended up, but he was fairly sure that they were hurt enough that they wouldn’t be back in the fight anytime soon.

He turned his head just in time to see yet another approaching Goram Colossus trip as its left legs seemed to give out, though instead of tumbling end over end, it fell to the side and slide 1,000 feet, just barely missing his minions as it slid past.  Before it got too far and was able to get up, he sent 100 of them to leech Health from it, hoping that it would be enough to finish it off. 

Before he could refocus on something else, two Colossi appeared from different directions, so intent on reaching Thaden that they didn’t appear to see each other.  As they both took a step that squished a good dozen of his minions, who leached Health from them in the process, they dove toward him simultaneously, colliding mid-air above him, missing him by about 10 feet.  The once-again deafening shockwave from the impact sent him rolling a few feet, lifting him further out of the hole, and in the process he watched as the Colossi rebounded backwards from the collision, both of them with broken bodies that might have been enough to kill them even without any Health being leeched from them.

The carnage continued, as the spread-out Colossi arrived singly, in doubles, or even in triplicate, but all of them suffered some sort of catastrophic failure in their attack.  He observed as one of them attempted to swerve to avoid the corpse of another Colossus, only to accidentally clip it with the side of its head, which was just enough to make it turn into the path of a second rushing Collosi, which T-boned it so hard that it was ripped in half.  The blood that shot out from the destructive collision shot out toward a duo of Colossi, causing both of them to slip in mid-stride, causing them to flip upside down and land on their backs with ground-shaking force—right next to and in easy reach of his minions.

A comedy of errors absolutely devastated the entire contingent of Goram Colossi that attempted to attack him, with all of them either ending up so hurt that they couldn’t even get up or were killed outright, leaving only a handful left to eliminate.  As he counted only 3 of them left rushing toward him, he was able to sit upright and get to his knees as he watched 2 of them stumble over each other, only to recover a few steps later as the greenish fog that was his manifestation of Fortuity began to disperse, as if it was spent.  His heart caught in his throat as he witnessed the pair barreling down on him, only to relax slightly as they slammed into a Colossus corpse in their way, causing their momentum to reduce significantly, to the point where they were barely at a walk when they arrived at his perimeter of Charging Gorams a second later.  Thaden immediately had his minions swarm the 2 Colossi, leeching enough Health to take them down before they could build up enough steam to crush him.

Unfortunately, that didn’t help with the final Goram Colossus that was coming from the other direction.  With just the one monster pressing down on him with its Level Compression, Thaden was able to actually get to his feet, if still hunched over by the pressure, so he turned toward the last monster that was threatening to kill him.  Which meant that he watched in horror as the final Colossus leaped over the corpse of another one of its kind, sailing through the air and bypassing the perimeter of his controlled monsters.  He saw his death coming as its head came down like a nuclear bomb being dropped on him, and while he attempted to throw himself out of the way, it was more like he simply flopped over on his side.  The world was filled with pain as he felt himself smashed into the ground, the impact nearly making him black out entirely.

Fortunately, or unfortunately as it was, he was forced to feel all the pain as he felt his minions take the brunt of the damage thanks to Major Damage Transfer, but even that wasn’t enough to prevent all of it.  His connection to them snapped all at once, each one of them taking enough damage to kill them, despite the automatic healing; in an instant, all of his Minions were dead, he was severely hurt, and somehow his Fortuity had abandoned him – because the Goram Colossus wasn’t dead from the damage reflection via his Thrall Commander trait.

The monster tumbled away after the impact with him, though he could barely tell what was going on because he was in so much pain.  Fortunately, his Celestial Regeneration was still active, so his body was put together a few seconds later, but he still groaned as he pushed himself up from the new hole that had been created underneath him.  As he managed to crawl to his knees, forcing the Level Compression aside – he looked up to see the Fighters that had been protecting him struggling to move toward him with varying degrees of success; for the first time, he noticed that Zarin wasn’t with them, the 6-armed Heliothrope completely absent – and completely absent from the Raid Party, as well. 

Did he leave?  Wait, are they all gone?

The entire Local Legion was absent from the Raid Party, but he didn’t have a chance to investigate as he watched the last remaining Colossus scramble to its feet, appearing much slower and near death, but it was still strong enough to kill him.  That was obvious enough when it started moving toward him, and he looked around for a solution, debating for a moment whether he could use the Fighters near him somehow as minions, but discarded that thought immediately; the only way they could deal enough damage to kill the Colossus was if he used Dominate Spirit, and while he would absolutely do that to save their lives, he didn’t have enough time to cast it.

“Run!  We’ll… hold it off,” Rel’ba’shet forced out between heavy breaths, even as he practically collapsed near Thaden.    

Unfortunately, he knew that wasn’t going to help.  He couldn’t run fast or far enough to escape the massive monster, who would hunt him down with unceasing and single-minded focus.  Shaking his head as he searched for a solution, he tried to see if there were any more Goram anywhere he could throw in its way, but the only things left on the battlefield were himself, the 5 Fighters still with him, and the corpses of the Colossi that had already died.  Ideally, he would love to use Celestial Reanimation on one of them for a powerful minion, but there were two problems with that; first, the spell had a lengthy cast time, which he didn’t have time for, and second, even if he had the time, there was a limit to how high the Level of the corpse could be.  He though he might be able to reanimate the Behemoth Goram if there were still any around, but they had all been extracted and had subsequently disappeared, so he was out of luck.

The Level Compression pushed down on him even further as he watched his doom stumbling toward him, preparing to squash him and the Fighters arranged around him, and he closed his eyes, knowing that this was it.  He had no other way to deal damage, and the Fighters could barely even sit up at that point.

Well, I tried….

A few seconds before he expected to be squished for the final time, he heard someone shout, “NOW!”, which caused him to open his eyes just in time to see a barrage of spells and projectiles slam into the side of the Colossus, appearing to do very little damage, but it was enough to send it stumbling even further to the side.  Thaden looked over toward the walls to see that thousands of Adventurers and combat Classes had jumped down and approached as close that they could with the Level Compression pressing down on them, despite the danger of being so close to the powerful monster. 

The Colossus recovered, ignoring the attacks, and locked back onto Thaden, taking a few more steps in his direction even as it continued to take miniscule amounts of damage from the low-Level defenders.  However, even though each of them were only doing a fraction of what they would normally do because of the Colossus’ high Level, there were thousands of casters and long-range weaponry being sent against it.  As it took the last few steps toward Thaden, he stared in horror as it lifted one more foot to stomp down on him…

…only to freeze approximately 20 feet above his head.  The final Goram Colossus slowly tilted to the side, its Health completely depleted from the incessant barrage of attacks coming from the defenders who had left the safety of the walls, and Thaden shook along with what felt like the rest of the world as the monster impacted the ground, sending out a dramatic cloud of dust and spray of dirt as it obliterated the field that would take a long time to rehabilitate after all the damage that it had taken.

Silence, which felt strange and foreign after the battlefield had been filled with the incessant pounding of giant feet against the ground, reigned for all of 10 seconds as the dust settled, before he was nearly knocked off his feet when the defenders suddenly erupted in a cheer that rivaled some of the heaviest impacts that had deafened him earlier.  Getting fully to his feet and standing straight up, he helped Rel’ba’shet to his feet, as well, before absently clapping the Aelveen on the shoulder.

“Thanks, Rel.  That was… too close.”

He also thanked the other Fighters that had been in the heart of the fight with him, but they simply stared at him as if he was some sort of star-studded celebrity.  Or perhaps if he was some sort of god that had descended from the heavens.  It wasn’t fear, thankfully, more like wonder, awe, and confusion all wrapped up in one messy package, and while he didn’t necessarily like it, he thought it was at least better than them being afraid of him.

Turning to the Adventurers and other combat Classes that had participated in the defense, and had come to his aid at the end, he wasn’t surprised to see the Teglir Branch Leader, Eleria, emerge from the still-cheering crowd, flanked by Flarenia and Lovenia.  He was fairly certain that it had been her voice that had shouted “NOW,” earlier, so he had her to somewhat thank for the rescue.

Eleria and the twins walked toward him, stopping about 10 feet away, which was close enough to be heard over the celebration going on behind them.  “So, I guess I was wrong about you,” the older Netherine began with, while shaking her head.  “I had you pegged for running at the first sign that you couldn’t win, but I was mistaken.  Perhaps you really did earn that Coalition Rank, after all.”

He shrugged, the exhaustion he suddenly felt after the stressful battle hitting him down to the bone. 

“I don’t know how you did it, but you managed to fight off almost the entirety of the monster horde by yourself, with very few casualties in the process.”

“Casualties?” he asked.  “Who died?”

The Coalition leader pointed down the wall.  “We had a few deaths earlier on by those who were a little overzealous in their defense, but they were fortunately able to be Resurrected shortly thereafter.  I’ve heard that there were a few deaths among the residents of the city, but they should be able to be Resurrected, as well.  The damage the city took can be repaired, as well, but the real loss is going to be the members of the Local Legion that participated in the battle.”

“Really?  I noticed they were gone from my Raid Party, but wasn’t sure what happened to them.”

Even though he was tired, he didn’t miss the way Eleria prevented the grin that threatened to emerge on her face.  “One of the Goram Colossi flipped over you, slammed into the standing Local Legion Party as it passed over the wall – who I personally heard were planning on leaving once they thought you were going to lose – and were taken far away as the monster ricocheted off some buildings and disappeared into the distance.  It’s possible that we might be able to resurrect them, if we can find out where they ended up, but let’s just say that it isn’t a priority right now.  It’s our duty to ensure that the city is safe first, which could take hours before we know that there is no longer any danger.  You understand, I’m sure.”

Thaden gave a single laugh, before nodding.

“You know, it’s quite fortunate that the only permanent deaths that came from this entire attack were the same individuals who were investigating you, wouldn’t you say?”

Thaden didn’t say anything in response, as he simply looked at her, as if inviting her to accuse him of something.

She held up her hands as she said, “Not that I’m blaming you or anything, as you’re the hero of the day, and no one could possibly believe that you could be anything but the hero at this point.  We all saw what you did, after all – which was the most impossibly incredible thing that I’ve ever seen.  The description of your abilities by my great-granddaughters do not do you justice, as you’re even more powerful than anyone could’ve guessed, including myself.  I want to officially apologizing for doubting you, and I heartfully extend my help toward anything that you might need in the future.”

The sincerity in her voice felt real, but he was so tired by that point that he couldn’t do anything but nod in confirmation. 

“But enough of that.  Once we confirm that the threat has passed, the Quest that was shared with everyone will have been completed, and you’ll officially be the talk of the city – for good or ill.  I’m sure the Baron will want to meet the one who saved Teglir from destruction, but that can wait.  For now, you look like you’ve been run over by a parade of mountains and are about to fall asleep on your feet.  Flarenia, Lovenia,” she said, addressing her great-grandchildren, “if you would, could you take our hero here back to his room in the Coalition?”

“Absolutely.  He’s our friend, after all,” Flarenia said without any trace of irony. 

Great, that again.  Whatever, it’s too much to worry about now.

As he was led away, Thaden glanced around at the torn up and destroyed battlefield, surprised beyond everything that he’d actually managed to survive.  Not only that, but it seemed like his problem with the Local Legion had “fortunately” been taken care of, though it wasn’t really the way he would’ve deliberately chosen if he had a choice.  At least, he hoped it had been taken care of; he was sure that their deaths would have some sort of consequences, even if he didn’t know enough to guess what those consequences would be.

Thaden barely remembered his trip back through the city to the Coalition building, nor did he remember much of the twins dropping him off at his room.  He did remember seeing his bed, and before he could even think of changing out of his dirty and blood-stained gear, he fell on top of its soft surface and passed out with a relieved smile on his face, happy to have survived yet another absolutely wild day on Plangea.