The Wolves Ch. 026

Mason leapt in with one of his abilities and struck the boss with the glaive he was now using, inflicting a long cut in the bear's fur, while Sonja rapidly shot off arrow after arrow and Anja kept her distance, using shards of ice to deal damage. Ben wasn't doing anything but stand in one place, but Mason's flaming glaive and Sonja's flaming arrows told them that he was helping them out.

After a few seconds, the bear shook its head and then disappeared. It reappeared behind Ben, who had moved away as soon as the bear disappeared. Its swipe connected with nothing but air causing it to growl out in anger. That angry growl was cut short by a very long spear impaling it its chest before quickly being yanked free. Blood began to pour out of the wound left behind, soaking the fur around the injury.

It teleported again. Before it arrived, a sparking arrow was sticking out of the stone floor and a streak of electricity was moving across the room, quickly coalescing back into the form of Sonja. As soon as the bear reappeared, electricity shot out of the end of the arrow and began coiling itself around the bear. When it had circled the bear a few times, it constricted.

The bear bellowed in pain and began thrashing for a few seconds allowing everyone to get some attacks in. After a few seconds, the bear started glowing red while growing in size, easily breaking free of the electricity that had trapped it. It was now approximately fifty percent larger than it was when they started the fight, and where before it looked like there was intelligence in its eyes, now was only mindless beast.

It roared once more before lowering its head and barreling towards Jonathan. Rather than get out of the way, Jonathan stood his ground and covered the front of his body with both of his shields and activated Mana Shield to provide additional protection. As the bear bore down on him, the camera angle changed, showing much more of the room. The reason Jonathan wasn't moving became clear when Mason, Ben and the twins were shown fighting three large bears that seemed to have been summoned by the boss.

*****

I needed to keep the boss's attention on myself to give my friends the chance to take care of the three much smaller bears. 'It shouldn't be too difficult. All I need to do is keep myself between it and them,' I thought. As the bear got closer and closer, I realized that it wasn't slowing down, meaning I would probably get sent flying thanks to its massive weight.

I had my spear angled towards the boss and was surprised when the bear knocked it to the side with a quick movement of its head. Before I could pull it back, the bear finally connected with me. Mana Shield took the brunt of it before the bear broke through, and nearly sent me onto my back. Instead, it was steadily pushing me backwards, with me trying to get any traction I could.

I could have used Blink to get out of the way at any time, but then the bear would just turn to one of my friends. I realized that I would need to do some damage to get it to back off, which wasn't possible with my spear because of its ridiculous length. I did have an alternative, however, and quickly began hacking at the area between the bears neck and its shoulder with my sword.

It roared out its pain and backed off slightly, giving me the room to hit it with Shield Bash, surprising me when it didn't get stunned. I looked back and Blinked a few feet away from it to gain some distance, allowing me to use Barbed Spear again while still keeping myself between it and my friends. It was still bleeding from the first time I used the ability, but it still did a decent amount of damage. I walked forward a step, and quickly slashed with my sword, this time activating Siphoning Strike.

The bear wobbled slightly, showing the first sign that it was close to death. I continued slashing with my sword and after a few seconds, there were ice shards and arrows flying at it, followed by Mason flying through the air before landing behind it and using a series of attacks.

The bear rose up on its hindlegs, attempting a last desperate attack, but my mana had already regenerated back up to full and I was able to activate Mana Shield. Once more, Mana Shield absorbed most of the damage, leaving the rest of its attempt to maul me crashing against one of my shields. It stumbled after landing on its front paws again, and I activated Shield Bash followed by another Siphoning Strike. The bear made a final cry before falling on its side, dead.

*****

"Not bad," Thomas said. "I think they would have had a much tougher time had Jonathan not had that form at his disposal, but they still did well, nonetheless."

"He needs to give up the spear, though. It's not a very effective weapon in close quarters and remains useless a lot of the time. You could see that he was surprised when his stun had no effect thanks to the bear being Enraged, and if he didn't have Blink, he wouldn't have been able to use the spear at all."

"I don't think we'll see him get rid of the spear entirely, but I do think it's more of a niche weapon," Alexandra said. "Barbed Spear is a pretty good ability against bosses, and he only needs to use it once per fight if the boss isn't able to heal the wound left behind. That said, I think he'll use his shields less frequently, especially being able to activate and deactivate his shields whenever he wants. He has expressed interest in learning how to wield four swords effectively, though I don't know anyone who could help him do so."

"I may be able to help there, though it probably wouldn't be until after we get back to Scyftan space. There is a man that is a master of all melee weaponry, and may be able to teach him. He is a hermit and I doubt he would leave his home for anything, hence the wait." Thomas replied.

"You wouldn't happen to be talking about Aldrurkoth Andarux, would you?" Tich asked.

There was the look of surprise on Thomas' face. "Yes. I'm surprised you've heard of him."

Tich nodded. "There were a few apprentices of his in the navy. Even as cadets, they were absolutely unbeatable, even by instructors who had mastered many forms of combat before those apprentices of Andarux were born. He would definitely be the best person to train Jonathan."

"Well, in the meantime, we can get him started on using a sword effectively while we're on our way to drop off the dragons."

"You've decided to take the trip then?" Thomas asked Alexandra.

"We were probably going to go even before you told us Ercan had invited us for dinner. It might benefit Jonathan to see some more of the galaxy before we eventually depart for Nedovis."

"Excellent," Thomas said with a big smile. "Ercan will be glad to hear it. I'm sure his children will be excited to see Abi, as well."

*****

Earth

Algonquin Park Dungeon, Ontario

August 15, 2019

15:25 EDT

When the boss's corpse disappeared, we thought a chest would be in its place, but instead there was nothing. We all looked around, and finally spotted the chest just in front of the bear's den. We all started walking over and I tucked my spear between my arm and my torso so I had a hand free for the Beacon Abi gave me. While holding it, I transferred the crystalline sword and shields I had her make for me before putting away the spear as well.

[So did any of us get the last hit with Siphoning Shot or Siphoning Strike?] I asked, putting away the Beacon and taking out my phone.

[Well ahead of you there,] Mason answered, his phone already in his hand. [Damn it,] we heard him say after a few seconds.

I navigated to my profile page and scrolled down to my skills. Tapping on Siphoning Strike, I was disappointed to see that I only had six bonus damage from kills earlier in the day. [No luck here either,] I said, taking the time to assign my attribute points. After assigning the points, I took a look at the insanity of my stats in this form. While my Intellect was very low, and my agility took a little bit of a hit, the rest were just ridiculous. My health over doubled, my attacks were about seven and a half times more powerful, and I was much more durable thanks to increased damage reduction provided by the bonus to my constitution.

Putting my phone away, I looked down to Sonja who was looking down at her own phone. Even being over three times her height, I was able to see a small smile on her face.

[Do you have something to tell us, Sonja?] I asked.

She looked up at me, her small smile growing into a grin. [Yup. My Siphoning Shot damage has increased by an additional twenty-five, from a bonus of three, to a bonus of twenty-eight.]

[Nice!]

Having arrived at the chest, Mason walked up to it and opened it. As I saw him peer into it, I could easily see his excitement. I was way too big to handle any of the stuff in the chest, so I began the process of shapeshifting back into my hybrid form. By the time I was back to a relatively small size, Mason had already passed one of the items around, which was a cloth cloak. As it got to me, I knew it wasn't what Mason was excited about. Looking back up, I saw him pulling what looked like an impossibly long handle out of a comparatively small chest. When the head of the weapon finally appeared, we all saw what it was; a halberd.

"Dibs!" he exclaimed when he turned towards us.