1.42 – Get to Work

For a second, Rika stood among the splintered ruins of her barricade. She spent a moment, a precious few breaths, to marvel. There wasn’t any way she could have done that before her advancement. The chest had shattered when she hit it, and the remains of the cart hadn’t fared much better. The lesser zombies she’d knocked away when she charged through shambled to their feet.

In that moment, standing at the mouth of the valley in the crisp mountain air, she reveled in the certainty of power. This was what it meant to be strong. Strength had forged the Blackstone holdings and had given Maximilian and Ariadne such arrogance. And now Rika had grasped a strength of her own, a strength wholly separate from her past, and not subject to anyone’s demands but hers. She looked up to where the three shamans stood atop their huts, lobbing firebolts at her even now.

Rika knew exactly what to do with that strength.

Again she swept out with her axe. The blade cut through rotted flesh and decaying bone like both were smoke. She raised her shield and let the trio of firebolts fall upon it. She barely felt the impact, barely felt the heat. Erik landed a Bolster Might on her, and she laughed. Already she felt stronger than ever, and she probably didn’t need the boost just yet. But every bit, she supposed.

In a matter of seconds, she’d cut her way through the zombies. A good number of them had caught fire, whether from embers carried by the wind from the burning hut or from a poorly aimed firebolt. The rest, Rika just cleaved through as though they were nothing. Kill notifications streamed up the side of her vision, with Chryson managing any distraction they may have caused. When she made it to the other side of the zombie pack, she laid eyes on her true goal.

During her retreat, and then following level up, the goblins had gathered into a formidable looking defensive line. The greater goblins had whipped several rows of warriors into a shield wall. Their shields locked into a tough barrier, and the spears all pointed toward her like some forest of stakes. Behind them, the goblin hunters readied a volley of their barbed, bleed-inflicting arrows. Finally, greater goblins had spread along the line, their Wardriver ability boosting all those close by.

Rika raised her shield and let the arrows fall. When the percussive rain on her heater finally died down, she broke into a run. Covering the hundred feet in less time than she’d any right to, she slammed into the shield wall like a battering ram. Her initial Shield Slam stunned the goblin warrior she charged into and knocked it into the ranks behind. Before the rest of the goblins could react, she activated her new Dark Counter ability.

A blur of what she could only really call living shadow wrapped around her shield when Dark Counter activated. It was the same sort of not-light that curled around her weapon when she used Dark Strike, a blackness that tinged a deep violet at the furthest edges. While Dark Strike reminded her almost of a shadowy, heatless flames, Dark Counter was more like the morning mist that crept across the heath in the way it trailed after her shield and spilled to the ground below.

The first spear hit her shield, and already she could tell Dark Counter was doing its work. The impact was even less than the arrows she’d blocked. It looked like the combined effects of the damage absorption from her new skill and the reduced impact from her upgraded Shield Proficiency stacked with each other. Even better.

More importantly, the misty black blur around her shield thickened and deepened. It became more solid after that first hit, and it continued to become more so with each subsequent attack she blocked. She also had an intuitive sense of how much she’d charged the skill, thanks to Chryson. The only thing left to do was grab as many Tempo stacks as she could, then unleash the skill on the goblins.

It only took a few more seconds before she’d fully charged Dark Counter. The goblins threw themselves at her in a frenzy, driven on by the greater goblins’ Ferocity buff. Rika struck out with her axe, finding ample opportunity to land hits as the goblins devolved into their now-familiar swarm tactics. She did what she could to keep herself clear of any stray hits. She’d managed eight stacks of Tempo when Dark Counter was ready. Not wanting to risk losing her stacks, she unleashed the skill.

As with all her other skills, unnatural guidance took over as her intent took hold. She brought her shield to bear in front of her, so its face was square on with the direction she wanted the ability to go. Having properly “aimed” it, Rika unleashed the enhancement.

A wave of Dark power burst outward from the shield. It was wider than she’d expected, but also fairly short ranged—about three times her arm’s length. But the broad front of the wave more than made up for it, especially in her current fight. More kill notifications than she could count streamed up the side of her vision as the ranks of goblin warriors fell before her, their flesh blistering as though seared by black flames. Tempo hit ten stacks, too.

The way in front of her was clear, all three ranks of the goblin shield wall lay dead before her. Rika leaped over the corpses, landing before the shocked greater goblin that had been responsible for this section of the defenses. She slammed a Tempo-powered Rend into it, and nearly lost her momentum as the creature collapsed under her blade, its face split straight down the middle.

Nearby, the rhythmic pounding of weapon on shield caught her attention. She turned as the notification popped, unable to hold back her smile at what she saw.

Taunt (partial): 2 seconds (duration and effectiveness reduced by Mental Redoubt II).

Rend I: 8 seconds.

Dark Counter I: 1:42 remaining.

Tempo II x10: 5 seconds.

Jaws of Defeat: Minor increase to defense/magic defense from Resilience and Ward.

Advancing Mental Redoubt to rank three had shaved a second off the duration of the Taunt. While she still couldn’t bring herself to attack anything other than the greater goblin, it took far less mental effort to hold herself back than it had before. Every fiber of her being, every muscle in her body screamed, screamed bloody death at the goblin, but it was easier to quiet it and block it out. And she only had to do it for two seconds, too.

She moved on the greater goblin just as the Taunt fell off. As she advanced on it, she struck out with her axe in a wide sweep. The blade cleaved clean through two goblin warriors, earning her a kill notification for both and refreshing the duration on Tempo. Nearby, the goblin hunters scrambled away, getting into position to loose more arrows at her. The shamans on their roofs raised more goblins as lesser zombies. Rika only had eyes for the greater goblin in front of her.

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The greater goblin raised its axe, a telltale sign of their biggest attack. She took it on her shield and laughed when it hit. Between the reduced impact, her increased Resilience, and her advanced grade, these greater goblins were nothing to her now. She slammed a full Tempo Dark Strike into it, and her axe ripped through its wooden shield, severing the arm and going clean through its ribs for good measure.