Path of Dragons

Elijah was only a step behind Sadie when he shouted, “Get Dat and Helen! I’ll hold them off until you get them to safety!”

He didn’t wait for her confirmation before he initiated a shift into the Shape of Thorn. Meanwhile, Benedict’s bull-demon charged the front line of the ta’alaki army, ramming through them and planting itself in the center of the hall from which they’d come. Seeing the opportunity – and the danger – the bull-demon’s positioning represented, the fighters on the flanks folded in on the creature, stabbing it with their long spears. At the same time, the rest of the army repositioned itself to meet Elijah’s charge.

The bull-demon’s charge was enough to give Elijah time to complete his transformation, so when he hit them, it was in the form of the thorned sentry. Unfortunately, the army was well-trained, and by interlocking their shields, they erected a bubble of rippling ethera. Elijah crashed into it, thinking it would shatter before the weight of his charge, but to his shock, it held firm.

Even worse, he quickly received a dozen stab wounds as spears snaked out, piercing his scales. None of the blades went deep, but like his thorns, they carried with them a debilitating effect that, if it was allowed to pile up, would sap his strength. Elijah couldn’t let that happen, so he rode the natural rebound of his charge, letting it take him out of range.

But giving ground was the worst thing he could have done, because it allowed them to collectively take a slithering step forward. Then another. They advanced as one, reminding Elijah of Roman legionnaires. They’d even adopted a phalanx formation. It would have been surprising, but there was a reason the Romans had used it so broadly. It was just an effective deployment.

From what Elijah remembered – he’d gone down quite a few Youtube rabbit holes in his time, and often, they involved military history – the phalanx had a few glaring weaknesses. The first was that it was adversely affected by rough terrain, which seemed to be an issue for any rigid formation. In any case, that wasn’t really applicable when they were fighting on even ground.

The second tactic typically used to overcome such a formation was also a mostly universal truth. Any formation – the phalanx included – was weak to flanking maneuvers. Elijah couldn’t really swing that, either. Perhaps if he’d had a chance to coordinate with the others, it would have been possible, but they’d been caught on the back foot. So, flanking just didn’t seem all that useful – especially considering that, as far as he could tell, the ethereal shield they’d erected wrapped all the way around them.

But the most universally effective tactic for dealing with a phalanx was a simple one – break the front line, which in this case, was the shield, and the formation would collapse in on itself. It seemed especially true because the line had already been weakened by the bull-demon’s charge. They’d displayed remarkable agility by redeploying the formation to contain it, but Elijah was banking on their inability to repeat the feat.

So, he used Savage Might, then Bestial Charge as he hurled himself toward the shield. The combination of his increased Strength and the two abilities meant that he moved so quickly that, to an outside observer, it would appear almost like teleportation. For Elijah, he felt the stone floor crack beneath his feet as he accelerated to speeds normally only achievable by jets. Less than an instant later, he rammed into the shield.

But so did he.

Fortunately, he had Ron backing him up. A heal landed on him a moment before he made contact, and that injection of vitality repaired the bones he broke upon impact. For their part, the soldiers were thrown backward and into their fellows, creating a domino effect that didn’t end until the ones facing the bull-demon were tossed into their enemy.

The demon took that opportunity to lash out with a whip of fire that cut through the suddenly unprotected ta’alaki fighters. Screams of rage and pain erupted as Elijah rolled free of the pile-up he’d caused. He activated Domain of Vines, and the already destabilized formation was further thrust into chaos.

But these soldiers were not without abilities of their own, and Elijah felt a stirring of ethera before the enemy’s wounds began to heal.

“They have Healers!” Elijah shouted, his voice echoing through the confines of the chamber.

A second later, he felt Sadie plunge through the gap he’d created, and she was followed by Lamar and the other melee fighters. Dat was not among them. At the same time, the ranged attackers opened up, with Kurik tossing his traps in from the flank and sowing more chaos.

When Sadie reached Elijah, he growled, “I have to get to the Healers. Cover me.”

Sadie nodded, then activated the ability she called Bell of Faith. The eponymous bell – something between an illusion and reality – manifested above her head, then let out a ringing tone that sent a wave of energy into her allies while briefly stunning her foes. Elijah, who’d already begun another transformation, leaped high into the air.

His arms became wings, and his body slimmed into a serpentine form as he assumed the Shape of the Sky. He beat his wings, gaining altitude as the enemies recovered. Some threw javelins at him, but his recent levels had given him enough Dexterity to put his well-earned flying experience to good use. He dodged the projectiles, only taking a few small wounds as he fled to the other side of the chamber.

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Meanwhile, the battle progressed. There were hundreds of fighters against Elijah’s companions, and despite the disparity in individual power – his allies were stronger – the weight of numbers and cooperation was undeniable. It didn’t take a genius to recognize the writing on the wall.

Unless something changed, he and his friends were bound to lose.

That, more than anything, was why he’d flown away. Even as he dove through one of the connecting hallways, he wasn’t focused on survival. Rather, he wanted to change the paradigm of the fight. And to do that, Shape of Thorn, for all its strengths, was not ideal. 𐍂А₦ꝊᛒĘꞨ

With that in mind, as soon as he was out of sight, he shifted into the form of the blight dragon. Still, it took another two-hundred yards of scampering through the hall before he dropped combat. The second Essence of the Wolf kicked in, he reversed course and embraced Guise of the Unseen. He pushed himself to maximum speed, but even then, he couldn’t cover ground instantly. So, when he finally arrived back to the site of battle, he saw that things weren’t going well.

Fortunately, everyone was still alive – thanks mostly to Ron, who was doing the work of three men – but that wasn’t going to remain the case for long. The bull-demon was on its last legs, and the army had surrounded Sadie and Lamar. Both were holding out well, but due to the thick shields of the ta’alaki fighters, the other melee fighters were incapable of doing much damage.

The only really good news was that Dat was on his feet and had joined Kurik on the right flank. How much good either of them were doing was debatable, but Elijah was glad to see that the Witch Hunter had survived.

In any case, Elijah quickly climbed the wall and flipped upside down to crawl across the ceiling. A few seconds later, he found himself approaching the hall through which the army had approached. The ethereal shield was nowhere to be seen, so he was able to slip past their front line.

He’d expected some sort of stealth countermeasures, but he didn’t find any issues as he sighted in on the Healers. Unlike the armored soldiers, they wore blue robes with gold trim, and most carried etched metal staves. Elijah watched as they cast one spell after another. After only a second, he saw that they didn’t cast all at once. Instead, they took turns, maximizing their efficiency.

Elijah didn’t hesitate to use Envenom and Predator Strike before dropping onto the one he deemed most powerful. Just a graze, and he was onto the next. The Healers didn’t even know he was there until he’d bitten the fourth in line, which was when he used Flicker Step to teleport to the furthest one away.

That was the thing about Shape of Venom. It wasn’t meant to fight toe-to-toe with his enemies. The blight dragon was an ambush predator that relied on speed when stealth failed. His tactics reflected that as he raced from one place to another, biting as many Healers as he could find.

Of course, they healed themselves, but they quickly discovered that his venom was not as easily countered as they might have expected. They could overwhelm it, but it took the concentrated casting of three Healers to completely banish it. And if they were focused on healing one another, they couldn’t heal the front lines.

Via One with Nature, Elijah felt the tide of the battle turning. To speed it on its way, he shifted into his human form, ducked beneath a thrusting spear from one of the soldiers, and conjured a Swarm. Even as thousands of dragonflies manifested and descended onto his enemies, Elijah used Lightning Domain.

He didn’t push it to maximum power. His goal wasn’t to kill everything within the radius of its effect. Even if that was possible, which he doubted, that wouldn’t be enough to win the battle. It would also drain his ethera, which he knew would be a bad idea. The fight wasn’t necessarily one of attrition, but he knew it wouldn’t be won or lost in the space of a few minutes.

That meant he had to fight like he was in it for the long haul.

Still, Lightning Domain was a powerful ability, and the whips of lightning that swirled all around him stunned everything in its effective radius. That further disrupted the chain of healing, which had always been his goal.

The second Lightning Domain ended, Elijah cast Healing Rain and Soothe on himself before shifting into the Shape of Thorn. He took a few hits during the process of transformation, but they were quickly healed by his preemptive casting. And once he was in his most durable shape, he let loose with all the fury he could muster.

The already-weakened Healers had no defense against him. The procession of healing had also been disrupted, which meant that their efforts fell into disarray. Sure, they still threw out plenty of healing, but it was haphazard, with far more overlap than they intended. Most importantly, it was inefficient.

The first signs that proved that inefficiency was when one of the ta’alaki Healers simply collapsed from ethereal exhaustion. Elijah could certainly sympathize with that, but he also knew that it meant his tactics were working. Emboldened by that success, he redoubled his efforts, wreaking havoc among the back lines.

Many of the spear-wielding soldiers tried to respond, but with them being pushed from both sides, their formation had been broken. Now, it was a fight of individuals, rather than a clash against a unified army. That played right into Elijah’s hands.

At least until everything changed.

A wave of ethera swept across the battlefield, but surprisingly, it didn’t affect Elijah or his allies. Instead, it emboldened and empowered the native army. Healers on the verge of passing out experienced an injection of power, and suddenly, they were throwing out heals as if they were entirely recovered. Something similar affected the soldiers, who became so energized that they started to recover ground they’d already ceded.

The most affected by this was the bull-demon, who finally succumbed when dozens of spears pierced its hide. It fell with nary a whimper, telling Elijah that it lacked the energy to even cry out.

For his part, Elijah sprang away, shifting into his blight dragon form before clinging to the wall and skittering out of reach of the soldiers’ spears. That didn’t make him safe, because a volley of javelins soon followed. He juked back and forth in a zig-zag pattern, moving so quickly that he avoided getting hit.

However, he had no intention of regrouping with his companions and making a final stand. They needed help, but he knew that, as much power as he could bring to bear on the situation, he didn’t have enough strength to turn the tide of the battle. Not from the front lines, at least.

Instead, he went deeper into the tunnel, abandoning the recovered – but still depleted, in terms of numbers – Healers as he searched for the origin of the wave of replenishment.

It didn’t take him long to find it.

Until that moment, Elijah had only encountered a few people with the Tactician archetype, but one of those meetings had very nearly killed him. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he’d found the General, who was characterized by more elaborate armor and a scepter that looked more symbolic than practical. Similarly, it wasn’t difficult to come to the conclusion that this leader of ta’alaki likely possessed such an archetype. So, it was with some caution that he approached the slightly larger native.

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