“What is that monstrosity?” was the first question asked once the team had time to digest the existence of the ten-feet tall bovine.

“I remember Douglas talking about those, back when they were escorting us,” Jonas replied.

“Emory Foale mentioned something about them too, yes,” Laura added. “Said it was a regular fight every season or so.”

“There’s nothing regular about this thing,” Ira countered.

“Douglas said a Legend was to an Ancient what an Ancient was to an Elite or even a Veteran. Something you don’t fight like that,” Jonas remembered.

“Well, seeing the vitals of that thing, I agree,” he replied.

Jonas contemplated the prowling man-bull before adding.

“I’m not sure we’d fare well against an Ancient at that level either. We did the spider mother because she was well under our level. That thing’s even above yours, Jonathan.”

“And more than twelve times my health,” he replied.

Team

Professions

Health

Mind

Jonas Sims

Solid Aethershaper (92)

717/717

809/809

Jonathan Gilbert

Calculating Barrier (103)

1881/1881

856/856

Ira Heard

Careful Barrier (97)

2122/2122

886/886

Guss Fullmore

Abiding Assistant (96)

988/988

736/736

Laura Harvey

Calculating Grinder (96)

1100/1100

869/869

Alton Raby

Solid Gouger (96)

848/848

808/808

“We’re not fighting this,” Jonas confirmed.

He turned back toward the way they had come.

“Let’s see if Cowen managed to find the crows in Othary.”

The confirmation came as they approached the Gate back toward Othary, as there were five now familiar silhouettes. Cowen had just finished putting a signpost in the ground next to the Gate when she spotted the team.

“Ah. I was going to let you know we finally made it. Eight days and they showed up. Finally.”

“And the door opened.”

“Before those three elites were even dead, yes. What’s about the chest, though?”

“Basic trash?” Laura asked.

“Yea. Elites almost never guard such basic items, let alone three.”

“I think it’s something specific to the lair. It’s always three items, but the best we’ve seen is a single common.”

“Underpowered zone,” Cowen commented.

She pulled out the fresh sign, dismantling it and throwing the parts into her side bag, before looking into the zone.

“Looks nice. How are those cows doing?”

“You were not kidding,” Cowen said as they contemplated the Plaza guardian.

“An Ancient in the lower tier, and now a Legend. Is that what you fight?”

“Not usually, no. Legends’ lairs regenerate very slowly. Secondary guardians at the normal rate, but the major part takes extremely long to come back. They take over three months to regenerate in Biskanta. Both of them.”

“They’re supposed to be something very high tier, right?”

“Level 500 minimum. So far,” she replied.

She slapped her plated fist on Jonas’ shoulder, making him wince from the careful Strength of someone nearly three times Laura’s.

“You are making my day at last, Sims.”

“Uh?”

“Legends are something you fight in a huge team. Thirty people, all powerfully geared, with twenty percent more levels than the target, and even then, you count the success of the fight by the number you need to resurrect at the end of the fight.”

“Whoa,” Ira exclaimed, nearly simultaneously with Jonathan.

The two Barriers exchanged looks, before smiling.

“So it’s a dream to go and fight one with just your team. Or even you. After our first legend fight, we all sort of swore we’d take down one by ourselves one day. Probably when we’re tier eight. Or nine.”

“So you are going to fight it?”

“Definitively,” Myrl Douglas confirmed before Cowen even did.

“It’s probably going to be easy for you.”

“It’s a Legend. It’s not easy,” Cowen replied, before looking at the Adapted team.

“I tend to forget you all are new and you never got the proper course in Professional life. We didn’t back in my day, obviously, but you youngsters should have. Okay, lesson time.”

“The Labyrinth is hard, harsh, but fair. As long as you don’t underestimate your target and are ready to adapt, you can win fights.”

She pointed out the walking bovine.

“Legends are the closest you have to an unfair fight. In Biskanta, we fight upper mid-five legends. Level 620 ones. We gather every three months, over half of the British Scouts, and we fight those. All the tier six Professionals available if we can, starting at level 700 up to 840.”

She slammed her fist on her breastplate to emphasize her words.

“The lowest vitals anyone in that large team is 14,000 health. The Keeper has attacks that kill a Professional in that range nearly instantaneously if you miss the hints. As a creature one tier below, nearly 100 levels below any of us.”

Jonas could feel the instantaneous realization of how wrong any attempt at checking how dangerous the creature was could have gone.

“What makes a Legend fight really dangerous is that a Legend will have a dozen different attacks. Every fight we have done in Biskanta had at least one attack nobody had ever seen before. So you can’t even count on familiarity. You need to adapt, quick, fast, and be ready for anything.”

Then she shrugged and added, “And that’s it.”

“Uh?”

“The first fight against a Legend went very badly. As in, all but one of the team that tried it could not be resurrected, and that’s only because the woman ran out as fast as she could as an Unbreakable Waltzer about fifteen seconds into the fight. That’s how we learned to make large raids to tackle those things.”

“So what can we do?” Guss asked.

“It’s up to you. We’re going to do the fight, but as I said, these things tend to go bad if you’re not careful. You can wait it out away, you can watch up close and learn if you choose to.”

Jonas turned to the team, and they gathered together.

“Do we do this?” he asked.

“I say we do,” Jonathan said. “We’re not doing this on our own ever. Finding more people to do it the way it’s supposed to be done is not going to happen either, given how difficult it is to get here. She said it, either we sit on the sidelines, or we prove that we have it.”

“Even if it’s cheating with Cowen?” Jonas asked back.

“Maybe it’s her team doing the fight, but she said we’d learn. It’s how the Professions work – you don’t learn in books like you’d do it as a clerk, you learn by doing.”

“And worst case, they resurrect us afterwards,” Guss said.

“There’s that, too,” Jonas admitted. “I just want to make sure everyone’s okay. We take already too many risks as it is.”

“I know, you have the highest death score of the team,” Ira replied.

“I say, we do it,” Laura injected.

Jonas checked everyone’s face.

“We’ll fight as well,” he announced.

“Okay. But you will focus on your part in the fight. You need to react fast. Anything that looks suspicious, you avoid. If it calls out additional bovines, you two get ready to step in – that’s almost always a feature of those fights. I’m not going to invite you. Habborlain will help to patch your health if necessary, but you, Fullmore, it’s your job to keep your team alive. That’s how it usually works in the raids – each sub-team primarily focus on their own usual jobs, while we whittle away the big one. Staying in your own team will help to get that across.”

“Aye.”

“So, we’re going in. You watch out before moving, and get ready to move again. It’s going to use auras, large-scale attacks, all kind of nastiness.”

Cowen gestured to her team, and the four other started to spread out at a safe distance from the Plaza. Jonas turned to his own.

“Okay. If there’s additional cows, we should get one defender on each side of the Legend. Guss, you’re okay?”

“As long as none of you move out of range, I am.”

They noticed Cowen raising her hand. She made a chopping motion as she started to jog toward the Plaza.

Kuminos’ Fiery anger: -1 mind per five second, 1 fire damage per five second.

The aura coming off from the bovine Legend slammed straight into Jonas’ status, feeling nearly physical despite its very moderate strength. As he watched, the status already changed as the interval for fire damage dropped to four seconds instead of five.

Seeing this as their cue, the six started to approach the combat site. The man-shaped bull was striding unhurriedly to approach Cowen, apparently unconcerned by her high levels. Creatures never were cautious about their opponents anyway, once they fought.

Cowen’s lightning sword clashed with the glowing axe, throwing sparks and embers.

Kuminos draws upon the fire. Fire damage reduced by 2%.

Jonas heard Myrl Douglas swear loudly from his left. Apparently, the spellcaster was as specialized in fire damage as he was – probably even more so. Being told that your mainstay attacks were going down was not pleasant.

Jonas arrived just in range and started dropping a Fire Funnel on Kuminos. Even with reduced damage…

Kuminos’ laughter rumbled across the plain, sounding like a thunder of hooves on the ground.

Kuminos draws upon the fire. Fire damage reduced by 4%.

“Okay, I’m not doing that again,” Jonas said to himself as the funnel’s ground embers vanished, drawn into the Legend’s hooves.

He tentatively launched a Flame Bolt, but that spell did not trigger anything. He threw an apologetic glance at Douglas, who replied with a shrug.

The Legend raised one of his legs. Smoke poured out of the hoof, and he slammed it on the ground.

Green light sprang everywhere.

Jonas blinked. The plains was covered in pale green… like transparent panes, like a faded church glass stained window. He was surrounded by a box square of glassy surfaces. And sound had vanished. It was like being by himself, the clanging of weapons from the main fight gone, everything silent.

Surface Shielding

3 damage/square feet

Around him, square boxes covered everywhere, barely hinted by the strange reflection and slowly deepening green view of everything as more and more surfaces separated him from everything else further away.

Jonas could see Guss nearby, frantically gesturing at himself and waving his censer and hammer.

Flame Bolt deals 79 fire damage to Surface Shielding (26 square feet removed)

Two more bolts shredded the two surfaces that separated him from Guss. As the last bolt tore through the glassy shape, he heard Guss swearing loudly again.

“Can’t do anything across that,” he yelled.

Jonas looked back. The pair of Aubert and Foale had been tearing at the walls, just as the four melee combatants of his own team were. Their blows removed huge chunks of the green surfaces, not just next to them, but crumbling across the entire plains. As he watched, bits and pieces of the walls next to him started to dissipate.

He raised his fist and started throwing more Bolts, opening a hole into the pane so that Guss could at least send heals toward the melee. So far, they’d suffered little damage, but as Cowen had explained, that could change very quickly.

Bit by bit, the box structure crumbled, until it suddenly vanished entirely.

“Ware Axe!” yelled Jonathan Gilbert.

Jonas barely had the time to react. Kuminos' axe seemed to elongate. It seemed to be reaching across the entire battlefield, sweeping across the entire place. It passed over him, barely inches above his head.

Kuminos’ Axe Sweep partially hits. 54 fire damage (39+16 defence rating)

All of the team had ducked at Jonathan’s warning. The axe swept, hitting the robed shape of Habborlain. Rather than folding in two under the stroke, the figure seemed to be pushed seamlessly across the plains. The Physics then strode back toward the fight, seemingly unfazed by the blow. Jonathan didn’t even try to guess what a full hit might have been doing, but a tier six Professional could probably absorb it.

Kuminos’ Fiery anger: -1 mind per second, 3 fire damage per second.

Guss Fullmore kept careful watch of the aura boiling over the battlefield. His was the lowest mind vital of the entire team, and while the constant drain was not too large, it was… preoccupying. Thanks to the gloves he’d found, he had a 1% base regeneration, which translated into nearly one additional mind point every four seconds, despite the constant drain.

The green barriers hadn’t sprung again, and the combat seemed half-done; the Legend’s health having been whittled by half. Those green barriers had been a terrifying experience. Being cut from the team, with only his hammer and the small damage on it to break the glasslike green.

Kuminos’ axe strikes seemed to pour out some damage onto the close combatants, but so far, he hadn’t spotted anything like the near-instant death attacks that Augusta Cowen had warned them against. So he kept Patch Wounds and similar effects going and waited until the fight turned against them.

Because, of course, that one would.

Kuminos moved his axe into his right “hand” and raised the left one, light gathering into its open “palm”. Ira Heard steeled himself. Flat Blade helped against any special attack, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t do damage.

A huge orb of fire bolted up, and seemingly bounced against the skies, coming crashing down twenty feet to Ira’s side.

Kuminos’ fire tears at the world.

For a fraction of a second, a huge bonfire roared, sparking high. Then, blackness stepped out.

Bull’s Shadow

Level 91 elite

Health: 2457

Mind: 869

Endurance: 3804

Aether: 0

“On it!” Ira yelled across the battlefield.

Jonathan raised briefly one of his swords in acknowledgement, and Ira sprinted the few paces separating himself from the black bovine shape, slamming his old sword against the darkness as the bovine seemed to look across the field, trying to pick a target.

“Come, you little shadow. You’re not even a proper cow!” Ira taunted.

Bull’s Shadow slices your soul. -5% vitals.

“Okay. That’s going to hurt,” Ira muttered.

Laura Harvey could see the steady stream of Flame Bolts slamming into the darkness from her peripheral vision. They seemingly vanished into the shadowy shape, but she could see the health of the creature going down with each hit.

Her own hits did as much damage but left her feeling unclean.

Bull’s Shadow splashes on you. -1 all physical potential.

It wasn’t bad, it was just… unpleasant. Even if the drain was still trivial, and each hammer blow added another point to the drain and raised the duration back to ten seconds, she couldn’t bring herself to stop and let it come back in full.

Impact triggered again, increasing her Smash strike by 35%, nearly an additional 26 damage. That was what felt good about the attacks, despite the slowly dropping Strength. They felt like power. She knew that such an attack, even weakened, would probably instantly kill a mundane. But she was facing a more dangerous foe than any non-Professional. And that shadow was going down.

Alton Raby moved smoothly behind the gigantic bull, resuming his attacks now that the shadow was down. The two daggers in his hands felt light, moving like lightning. But every rake, slice, jab across the thick fur felt wrong.

By the numbers, each attack did hit as it should.

But with every hit, the two insanely high Professionals, Aubert and Foale, did much worse. He could see the chunk of health being torn off the Legend. He could even guess that they probably did not put everything they had into it, that they were simply fighting for the fun of it.

That idea grated on him.

He and Jonathan hated feeling powerless like that. And, in a way, he admired Jonathan’s willingness to gather Adjustment. He would not burden his team with it, but he could admire it from afar.

Alton Raby didn’t even have a full name, like the rest. He was born unwanted, grown unneeded, and moved across the city of London unseen. One of the teeming masses of the poorest, stuck by fate. His friend Jonathan had everything he never had… and lost it all. He’d realized that, on that day, that nothing mattered, but what you were. What you owned, what you could be, never mattered. Only what you were and what you had, right now.

And right now, what they had was lacking. That bull would never fall if it were just Alton and his team doing it.

A smile sprung on his face, as the last thousands of health vanished under the combined onslaught.

Having Adjustment meant they would be the best, one day. Adjustment meant he would be what no one, but his friends could ever be.

Kuminos, Bovine Offspring + 1: 14041XP/11 contributors = 610XP

You have completed Donerkal Plaza.