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It soon became clear I had only been actually attacked by one person. The ‘scout’ of the group appeared to be more like an assassin. I’d seen the sort of body double he created before. Now that I was focused, I was prepared if something like that happened again. Of course, since he hadn’t killed me he’d already lost the all-important element of surprise.
I could see the rest of the group- Trollbelly, another dwarven warrior, a human cleric, and two wizards in the back a bit too hard to make out clear features of at the moment. I had to watch the person in front of me, after all. I could see in my peripheral vision that Alhorn had stepped forward, and Socks was already past me.
The assassin, who was also a dwarf, made it clear that his stocky frame didn’t make him less agile. As he attacked, his dagger blurred- and I was only barely able to move my shield to block my neck again. I wasn’t going to bet he would attack only my neck, so I had to watch carefully. I wanted to disarm him, but he had a small fast weapon. At least he couldn’t easily get through my armor, so I just had to protect the few weak points. I took a few swings at the assassin, but he easily avoided my attacks… but I wasn’t trying that hard yet. Something was weird about his attacks… it seemed like they weren’t as fast as the blur indicated. To be clear, they were still extremely fast… but he should have been slower than Khyrmin still. Now, he was certainly faster than Khyrmin going easy on me… but with snippets of Martial Trance I could see more clearly. Indeed, the blurring of the attacks was coming from some sort of magic instead of the speed itself. If I could get just the right timing…
I almost had it, but then I had to block a fireball thrown at me. A barrier from Kantrilla dispersed much of the impact and the rest deflected off my shield, but I could feel the heat waft over me nonetheless. The next opening I saw, another fireball came towards me… and once again the heat wafted over my shield. However… my barrier hadn’t yet been refreshed. Even so, it was just… warm. I didn’t have enough time to think about that before the assassin suddenly dashed past me. There was no way for me to catch him… if he hadn’t suddenly slipped. To his credit, he managed to keep on his feet quite elegantly… but instead of dashing past me, he ended up sliding to a halt just slightly beyond me.
I swung my mace backhanded towards him, striking him in the shoulder even as he recovered. There was a loud crack and he flew into the wall, and I was open to look at the rest of the battle. The extra fellow who had attacked the back line hadn’t moved in the slightest after Carlos kicked him… and I supposed that since a normal mule’s kicks could do someone in, Carlos certainly could… even if the person in question was an adventurer.
Towards the front of the battle, Alhorn was facing off with Trollbelly. I could feel the power behind each swing of her hammer, and that wasn’t counting the magic. Alhorn hadn’t managed to find any advantage, but he expertly deflected her attacks and flashed light in her eyes at just the right moments. It was hard to avoid light magic of that sort- it wasn’t like you could dodge, and even closing your eyes would produce a similar effect. Of course, it required a good awareness of exactly where the opponent and their eyes were to do that in battle without also potentially blinding yourself.
I saw Socks biting and swiping with her paws at the other warrior, but her battle wasn’t going as well. I saw several bloody gashes on her… but she wasn’t the sort to give up. I saw a glow on the dwarf’s axe that had a tiny trail of magic linking to the cleric behind him. Further behind that, both wizards kept throwing fireballs. I still felt that something was wrong about some of that, but I had to start with assisting Socks. Trollbelly was probably a more important opponent… but Alhorn could hold out a bit longer.
Arrows flew past me, which was likely the only thing keeping the wizards from doing quite as much magic as they’d like. I moved around Socks, and took a swing at the warrior fighting her. He stepped back, but as he did so Halette yelled. I couldn’t make out her words with the fireballs and clanging metal, but Socks understood her. Socks leaped past him as he was focused on me, and she charged towards the two mages.
The cleric- who wore a symbol of Strength indicating they were an attributist like Kantrilla- tackled Socks from the side. At the same time, arrows stopped flying down the corridor and I heard commotion behind me. Everything was hard to take in, and even Kantrilla was running past me. It was a surprise… not because she was incapable of frontline combat, but because I didn’t think it was necessary. The warrior in front of me tried to take a swing at her as she passed… but he had to pull back or lose and arm as I swung my mace at him. As it was, I just barely clipped his breastplate… but he was sent tumbling backwards. There was no way I was going to hold back at that moment, though I hadn’t had time to rage.
It wasn’t a matter of whether Kantrilla was really at risk… it was that he even tried to attack her. It was much easier to activate rage in such a state… and since this dwarf still looked to be holding up, I figured more Strength wouldn’t hurt. Well, it would hurt him.
As the dwarf was still on the ground, I stepped forward and swung down with all my might. He reflexively blocked- not a terrible idea, in his case. He was carrying a metal handled axe, so it could stand up to pretty much anything. I had to give credit to the dwarf, he angled the axe in such a way as to deflect my blow, and his grip didn’t give out even though the handle did. Of course, the Strength to keep his grip and the Toughness to not have any broken bones there were probably stolen… so I couldn’t give him too much credit. I imagined it would have been a tough fight if he was more prepared to face off against someone with a thousand Strength and an ‘unstoppable’ weapon, but one of those things was new… and though my Strength hadn’t improved that much in the last month, I still had another thirty or so and was raging on top of it.
I couldn’t see the bricks underneath him, but I heard them cracking along with his chest armor distorting. Unlike the hammer, his chest took the full force of the blow as he was pressed against the ground. I probably should have conserved my mana more, but then again… winning quickly was good. I had a pretty good pool of mana, but the more Strength and levels of Bash I got the more I could use… and now I was about a quarter lower than I had been. I was actually surprised when the warrior managed to roll over to the side and stand to his feet… but I didn’t think he would be continuing long with that dent in his chest and his ragged breathing. Even so, I couldn’t take too long.