A suggestion was made to put Max's team members in this chapter, so I've done that. All five current party members and a short description of their skills is at the end of the chapter.
###Chapter Eight###
The walls had risen, and Miriam had bought them enough space to collect their thoughts. It also gave Chaeryn a window to collect her arrows. Fiona's leeching darkness was only effective against blue and red slimes, meaning that any white or black slimes had to be dealt with by destroying their cores. By far the quickest, safest, and surest way to do that was to have Chaeryn shoot them out with her crossbow. Her find weakness skill meant that she could precisely target the cores of even the black slimes, something that would be very difficult to do with unaugmented vision. Even though they'd passed quickly through the slimes, each of the dummy arrows had been damaged by the caustic goo that the slimes secreted. The recovered arrows wouldn't be worth taking back to Camp Acheron, but they could each probably be used to take out another slime or two.
Every fortress is also a prison. Every wall has two sides. The very walls that had been erected to prevent their party from being assaulted from all sides at once also prevented them from attacking or even
seeing
the forces of Jotunheim in much of the cavern. It wasn't clear what some of the monsters were doing, but the howls and shouts of the winter wolves and giants conveyed their positions even if they remained unintelligible to the ears of the people of the Alliance. That the frost giant was shouting words in a language was obvious, but it was not one native to Earth or any world Max could travel to. Even without knowing a single word of Jotunheimer, or whatever they called their language, he could guess that they were massing for an assault at the gate.
Miriam had left a single gate, and most of the monsters were obligingly attempting to pass through it to attack them. This in turn, allowed Ulzhari and Sophie to fight side by side, presenting a single front against the beasts. And it
was
beasts who were rushing the gateway. The giants were able to boss around the trolls and vaetti, but the slimes and wolves just attacked hunters on instinct. And those instincts were sending them into a single confined space to be met by a Valkyrie's sword and a Berserker's ax. They might as well have been instinctually jumping into a sausage grinder. But while the front liners were well situated to take down beasts one at a time, there were still only two front line hunters in their party. Strong as they were, they wouldn't be able to hold against that many giants and trolls.
Yanking slightly on her mana tether, Max got Fiona's attention. Her mouth made an 'O' of surprise as she felt her binding seal progress. It was surprisingly comforting for her to feel Max's tug on her neck. "Do you need more mana?" She blinked at him. Such a strange question, she didn't know how to respond. As a storm mage, she
always
needed more mana. With enough mana, she could almost solo the dungeon. At least, if it wasn't for the colorless slimes and the frost giants. Recognizing her incredulity for what it was, Max proceeding to describe his plan. "My motivating strikes will give you more mana, but they hurt. Like, hurt for real. So we need to go stand inside your leeching darkness so that you can heal up when you drop the leeching darkness on the wall opening."
Fiona could see the logic of the plan, and nodded. "Sure, but you need to order me. To get the bonuses." He could see the logic of
her
statement, apologized, and reworded it as an imperative. Then Max gave her an open handed slap to the left tit. "Owwww!" She felt surprising amounts of pain as her breasts jostled. Part of it was that while her new beasts were perky enough to stay up, her dungeon equipment didn't have a sports bra in it. In fact, her nondescript dark gray dress provided pretty much no support at all. So when he smacked one breast, it bounced into the other and then reached the end of what the skin on her chest would allow. The breasts snapped back, but not at precisely the same time, meaning that they came back to the middle and impacted again. It wasn't nearly as much bouncing as if he had dribbled a basketball, but it was still more impacts than she had been ready for. "Mmmm." As the pain rescinded, she became aware of the return of her mana and the tingle of progression in her binding seal. The amount of lost durability was troubling, but that was what the next part of the plan was all about.
The two of them made their way to just a few meters behind Sophie and Ulzhari and waited for the rush. They didn't have to wait long. "GORAGAH HRUGATH!!!" The largest giant made a bold pronouncement and the other Jotunheimers took it as the sign to stampede. Two ogres, ten trolls, and one five meter tall frost giant was far too much to fit through the gap at once, but it was also too strong a tide for their two frontliners to hold back.
Holding Fiona's leash in one hand and his sword in the other, Max shouted commands of his own. "Miriam, stick 'em down! Chaeryn, shoot the big ones! Fiona, give 'em hell!" He remembered to put them all into imperative language, and all three women felt it in their seals.
"Yes, Master!" Chaeryn took up a kneeling position and started aiming in on the ogres. Usual Alliance doctrine was to leave ogres and frost giants alive for as long as possible because the considered position of the Space Force after many engagements on Earth and in dungeons was that the larger monsters of Jotunheim were utterly unsuited for command. As Chaeryn fired off a dummy arrow at the blue face of a three meter tall warrior, she trusted that Max had a plan. Following his orders to enact it made her feel warm and comfortable.
And Max
did
have a plan. Miriam gasped as she realized the progression of her claiming seal wen she did as Max had told her. She raised her goblet and enacted grasping mud. The area between the walls became clingy and greedy. Each step took tremendous strength, and progress was slowed to a snail's pace for all but the mightiest of the enemies. This made them sitting ducks for the leeching darkness that poured out on them from Fiona's sorcery. It meant that the trolls who had been thrown into the meat grinder by their giant leaders were drained to ash before they had the opportunity to test their blades against Ulzhari and Sophie. The Ogres, on the other hand, were both large and strong enough to make real progress. Or they would have been, if not for pieces of wood being flung into their eyes at high speed by Chaeryn's crossbow.
Stomping on the ground, Miriam was able to get a mental picture of where the enemies were touching earth and stone. Any flying monsters, or creatures standing on ice and snow, would remain invisible to her. But it did tell her things. "They're climbing the walls at two and nine! Trolls and bear!" The stone defenses gave them some time, but the flanking attacks were well outside of Fiona's leeching darkness.
Surveying the situation, Max told his party members to redeploy. "Sophie, fly up and Dumpty those trolls! Chaeryn, shoot that bear when it comes into view! Fiona, night fog up high so we have two meters to work with." He was still holding a leash attached to Fiona's collar, and he didn't have to shout to deliver her instructions. "Miriam, put everything into holding down the biggest boy! Ulzhari,
chop down that giant!
"
There were two cloud effects available to Night Callers. Leeching darkness was the signature spell of Shadow Mages and remained the primary expression of offensive power for higher tier versions of the class. It created a cloud that visually drained all color from the area, inflicted damage on the enemies and healed allies within. In almost all circumstances, a Night Caller would be called upon to use the leeching darkness. But they also had access to
night fog
, a cloud that didn't do nearly as much damage, didn't heal allies, and wasn't even as large in radius. What night fog had going for it, and the reason Max wanted her to place it over the giant's head, is that it muffled sound and was
opaque
. At five meters tall, the frost giant could be so deep in the fog that he could not see the orcish berserker nor even hear her well enough to anticipate her movements. All without the fog dipping down low enough to hamper Ulzhari in the slightest.
That alone wouldn't be enough to make attacking the monster a remotely acceptable risk. It's sword was longer than Ulzhari was tall. It was extremely possible that even one hit from that thing would cause permanent injury or death. It looked to be covered in
gold
of all things, and Max couldn't even begin to guess how much it weighed. That's where the other part of the plan came in. Miriam dropped the grasping mud that would impede Ulzhari much more than the giant, and large blocks of earth detached themselves from the walls she had made in order to crush in on the giant from all directions. It wouldn't hold the powerful monster for long, but it didn't need to.
