Our party closes ranks, proceeding down a small slope, before hitting another sharp rise that has us scrambling for handholds. Even if I can't remember any of it, I know I grew up in an area way too urban for a landscape like this. The terrain makes it pretty difficult for our group to move freely, especially with our weapons out. A number of us have to sheathe ours to free up our hands. I manage by unstringing my arrow and holding my bow in one hand.

Unexpectedly, it's my Wall Cling Skill kicking in against the steep slope that allows me get through without as much trouble as the others. When I kick in the toes of my boots, they stick in place, right against the sheer rock face when there are no available footholds. The same goes for my free hand. At its low level, the Skill effect only lasts for a few seconds before it wears off, which does send me sliding and scrambling for purchase the first time it happens.

From there, I'm more careful about only using it for short bursts, and make much quicker work of the climb than some of our other party members. The skill actually rewards me climbing faster – recklessly fast even – since it'll stick on any surface, and it's the time limit that poses the most risk.

Thankfully, when we make it to the top, we see easier terrain up ahead, and angle off toward it on our descent. The area we reach is less rocky, with a gradual decline we can walk without nearly as much trouble. It isn't much further before we reach the area I spotted from a distance though.

I slow when I feel it. The air itself is different, thicker. Whatever that noise is that Taryn heard earlier, it's loud enough we can all hear it now. A deep, rhythmic thumping from somewhere ahead. It barely registers in my ears, more like I feel it vibrating in my chest. We continue to proceed slowly as I scan the changed surroundings. Something about the shapes, the familiarity is becoming more distinct...

It's the trees.

“I recognize this,” I whisper to the party. “These trees.” I touch one, the feel of its bark alone telling me it's far stronger than the trees earlier, but inflexible to the point of being brittle. “They're from Hexos.”

“They're what?” come a half dozen shocked replies. Much louder and less stealthy. We freeze, glancing around warily to make sure we didn't just draw an attack.

“Well,” I reconsider the thought, mumbling quietly to myself as soon as the tension breaks. “That's only if the trees they put in that forest were actually accurate for what they have in mind...” If the devs just threw whatever they had on hand in the background as set dressing for that cutscene, then the particular type of tree might not have been important.

But even the air feels the same here, doesn't it? The overall gray, lifeless feel of the trees and their deeply furrowed, lifeless branches confirm my impression that these trees were intentional. Finally turning my attention to my party to answer, I mention my thoughts, along with a few words about how I was sort of technically on the Oblivion home world once because of a bug.

After I go quiet, Winter is the one to explain things. He's positioned just behind us, one hand raised slightly at his side with a fully formed spear of ice hanging above him, ready to go whenever.

“When the Oblivion break through to Nirvalla, it corrupts the land around the tear. It would make sense for the landscape to start becoming like Hexos. If you get far away from town, lots of the land is already corrupted like this.”

“I'd gladly burn it all down,” Flare offers from further back, “but their trees are stupid fire resistant.” There's little else to say.

The clearest path curves slowly left, my wonderful new sense of direction telling me we're headed almost directly southeast now. The grass dies out, leaving nothing but dry dirt and choked tree roots. At least there aren't any larger rock formations to deal with.

The decline does pick up though, slanting down steeper and steeper as we come closer to the ever-present sound that rolls over the landscape. Whatever is causing it, we don't make it there before the monsters find us.

“They're coming!” Taryn's alert has the two of us fall back so our fighters can take the front, including Lara, who draws her short sword as she casts a slew of buffs on everyone. They take very wide, low stances on the uncertain footing. At least we have the high ground.

Then Taryn fires, before I even see the enemies, and Winter shadows the attack, flinging his ice spear in the same general direction. With Taryn's crossbow, it looks like he has a lengthy reload time. He gets on it, while Winter and Emma start chanting and I strain my eyes until I spot movement. I loose an arrow that way experimentally.

It flies into the distance, my only indication that my attack actually worked being a strange clang sound. By the time I've drawn my next arrow, the figures have started to resolve from the surrounding trees and darkness. They look like wolves, but... wrong. Tall and metallic, with their legs bent the wrong way. Moving wrong. And rather than anything resembling growls, there are these clicking sounds like insects coming louder and louder, making all my fur stand up in agitation.

I fire a few more arrows as the things begin to pour from the trees, rapidly filling the path ahead of us.

“-Wild beasts, come!” Emma finishes her chant, “Beast Summon!” With flashes of light, three creatures form into existence around her, taking point in front of our group. They look much closer to real wolves, but have this stocky, upright posture more similar to apes. Their black fur only accentuates the resemblance. With a second wave of her hand, another three join the group, but these ones are visibly larger and stronger than the others, and Zykael takes flight from her shoulder, gaining altitude above the incoming monsters.

I fire more arrows, watching as they strike the metal hide of the Oblivion creatures, probably dealing damage, but not much. My eyes skirt along them, trying to get a count as Mark and Flare start putting out attacks at a rapid pace.

I can't count the monsters. There are too many, moving in and out of cover as they rush in.

When they're closer, I narrow my sight on a single target and activate my Power Shot. The arrow punches into the thing's head, where it isn't as armored, but apparently it doesn't matter. The shot has such a booming power that it blows the monster away entirely. Even the bow in my hand creaks unsteadily under the weight of the shot. When I look down at it, there are deep cracks forming in the wood.

...Seriously...?

I toss the bow onto my back and switch to magic. I'll deal with it later. I throw a couple Dark Curses out, the monsters falling away anywhere I hit. So, I'm still strong enough to one-shot these as long as I use my specials. But I still get just a handful of casts with my small mana pool.

Then how about...

“Dark Contagion!” I call my next spell when I cast. I watch as the dark magic forms, a huge chunk coming out of my mana. The contagion effect is expensive. The magic bursts, and the creepy thing falls.

Then... nothing. But, shouldn't the contagion effect cast it again when the target dies? Shouldn't it be exactly what we need here?

Apparently not. I'm forced back into picking off targets one by one as my remaining mana rapidly depletes from the constant casts. The others are significantly more effective, able to pepper the crowd with far better attacks. Especially the ones that have good area of effect to hit a lot of enemies at once. Flare has a few fire spells that burst over a good chunk of the swarm, and Mark has an attack where his arrows ricochet through the crowd.

Then, when Winter finishes his longer chant, the battle is practically over in an instant. “Arctic Frost!” he calls, and the magic washes over much of the field, freezing most the monsters solid on the spot. They'd barely even reached our frontline of fighters and summons. He must have a lot of points in the Field Skill for areas that big...

A few moments later, when the remaining enemies are pouring past their frozen allies, the spell seems to recast itself somehow, blasting the entire area again, to clean them up. It's kind of overkill...

The last couple stragglers are quickly picked off with arrows and spells, then we stand for a minute, listening intently, before everyone relaxes a little. At least the melee attackers didn't have to try fighting on this uneven terrain.

“Good fight, everyone,” Lara gives a solid thumbs up, and everyone nods.

“Umm?” I raise my hand awkwardly.

As we proceed slowly forward again, I raise my issues. “My bow started to break when I used it, and my magic doesn't seem to do what it's supposed to...” I show the weapon to the others, and the archers confirm the damage.

“Yep, your attack power must exceed what your bow can take now,” Mark explains. “Until you can get that one upgraded or replaced, you'll have to make do. Though it can probably only take a few more shots, so you'll have to take them carefully.”

I'm considering his words, and about to mention that I'll probably be fine relying on normal shots for now, when Azra speaks up without warning.

“Hey, umm, I might be able to help!” she practically squeaks with clear nervousness. “I can repair things.”

“Oh, cool. Thanks a lot, Azra,” I smile at her. I guess she does have some crafting Skills after all.

As I'm passing her my bow, Mark asks, “Do you have any materials? She can't repair it without-” And then he comes up short when she closes her eyes, and the cracks in my bow stitch themselves back together.

“H-how?” he sputters, with similar looks from everyone else.

“It's my Affinity,” Azra grins a little. “I can repair things.”

“That's incredible!” everyone starts agreeing enthusiastically before the young wolf girl waves at them to calm them down, her cheeks bright red.

“It's just a Minor Affinity, I can only use it on small objects. It doesn't work on anything bigger or with more magic. I can only repair something this size thanks to Mei.” So, not a crafting Skill after all. At least my buffs are helping. Now I'm really looking forward to getting the Hope buff later.

With my bow repaired, we push forward again. We didn't get to talk about the second part of my issue, but our proximity to whatever is making that sound around us has me holding my tongue.

With a wave of his hand, Taryn gets everyone to stop, as he sinks even lower to the ground. He shuffles forward, just past the edge of our group. Going down on one knee, he squints far off into the distance, and aims carefully for a few seconds, before pulling the trigger. His crossbow bolt vanishes into the trees, and a second later, the sound of a crash reaches us.

Still on our toes, we advance again. He repeats the process twice more, taking out individual targets before we even see them. “Ok, I think we're coming up on it,” the elf whispers. We all huddle down low, avoiding the thorn bushes that have started to spread between many of the surrounding trees, and look ahead to where the tree cover gives way to more open ground.

“Shitty position,” Winter comments, referring to how the decline gets even sharper just ahead of us. Looks like we came out at the top of a rock face, so it's a straight shot all the way down. Pretty much a slide that will put us right into what looks like a boss arena. Too steep to control our descent either. Unless...

Those slopes earlier give me an idea.

“Hey, is there some kind of boss up ahead?” I ask.

“Probably,” Mark is the one to answer. “There's definitely a tear. They usually have a special monster like a boss defending them, and I'm betting that thumping is coming from it. It must be something big too, especially if it's this far out and has had enough time to corrupt so much of the land.”

“Alright. Can I get the first shot? I'm basically an assassin, so...” I shrug. My first shot will probably be my biggest contribution to the fight. Not to mention, that's about all I'll get without risking breaking my bow.

“Sure, we'll be right behind you,” Lara agrees readily. When I look over the others, Taryn doesn't seem too happy for some reason. Well, he's kind of an assassin too with his crossbow, so I'm kind of taking his job here... Still, he doesn't say anything for now.

“Let's go.” Lara waves and bathes us in a flurry of buffs. We all move forward.

I go first, slipping over the top edge of the rock face, into a downward slide. It's steep and sheer, no handholds in sight.

I go low, feet spread out and nearly on my butt, one hand holding my bow ready with the other behind to steady me. Trees go by on each side, walls of thorns between them, as the field rapidly comes into view. I immediately gaze out across it, taking in everything I can.

It looks like an explosion took out a section of forest, the trees at the edge all collapsed outward. At its center, a strange, swirling portal. It's pretty small and hard to see at this distance, but I'm far more interested in the big thing guarding it.

It comes into view beyond the trees, decently far off toward the left side of the clearing, stomping its way between the far smaller things scurrying around its feet. Most similar to a kind of ogre with its large muscular body and dusky green skin. But that's where the similarity ends. Large purple spikes erupt from its skin at random. They've completely replaced the thing's hands and I don't even know how its knees function with the spikes jutting from them.

No room for hesitation. I kick my feet, killing all my momentum as my Wall Cling Skill activates. I stand straight up on the bizarre angle of the steeply pitched decline, the whole world around me looking tilted and disorienting. I ignore it, squinting as I draw. It's far, much further than I'm used to shooting, and my weird angle makes it hard to aim, but I have a really big target. The boss must be ten feet tall.

“Assassinate.” I whisper the callout to avoid alerting the enemies, and let the arrow go. There's a deep boom, my bow cracking and almost falling apart in my hands under the force.

Then, I watch as the arrow disintegrates off my bowstring.

You've... got to be kidding me...

Then someone hits my legs from behind, taking me out as we crash the last of the distance down the slope. I end up face down in the dirt, tangled with someone else as all hell breaks out around us. We manage to force our way up, and I see it's Koru. Still dazed, we join the others, firing spells as fast as we can.

“Damn it, what happened?” Taryn is asking as he reloads.

“My attack was too powerful and my arrow blew up!” I growl. I really need better gear.

“We'll deal with it in Mebin, let's just get through this for now!” Lara calls out while carving through the horde of incoming bug things with her short sword. They're about half our size, like some sort of giant roaches with these spiny sickle legs and freaky toothy faces, with wriggling tentacles coming out of their otherwise rounded, chitinous backs.

Thankfully, it looks like they aren't all that strong, the members of our group putting them down in just a couple attacks. The problem are their numbers. There are so many of them coming from every angle, the fighters can't keep them all busy.

It especially doesn't help that they all aim straight for me, hacking at anything in their path to reach me. That mostly means Mary and Nolen. Mary's shield and armor at least seem to be working for now, but the short fighter is taking a lot of hits.

Oddly, every time he gets hit, it's the monster that attacked him that gets all torn up. Does Nolen have a damage reflecting Skill?

Hask is probably the most helpful here. Any time the others are getting overwhelmed, he comes in with a flourish of his quarterstaff and sprays a wave of healing energy over them, often knocking back whole groups at the same time.

But there just aren't enough of them. Bugs slip by. One cuts into Flare's arm as it charges past him, and then it's on top of me. Gritting my teeth, I remind myself that I'm prepared for with this. As soon as it swings at me, I raise one arm to block and strike out with the other. I don't see any weak points to target, so I aim straight for center mass while activating my Counter special attack.

Its claws dig into my blocking arm and I flinch, but land my blow anyway. In an instant, its entire shell blows away under my fist, the horrible insect thing exploding as its body careens away into the crowd. Well, that's certainly a flashy skill, I think as I try to ignore the pain in my other arm.

“Healing.” I turn when Azra comes to my side, her hands over my arm as she begins to heal the injury. That's right, she's much lower level than the others, but she's a healer too.

“Thanks.” We nod, then she drops back closer to the cliff again. Her and Koru are the ones who need to be the most careful, they don't get any extra lives like the rest of us do. I blow up the monsters the slip through the cracks in our formation, even when I'm forced to Counter a couple more times.

The battle can only go on for a little longer, before the boss finally stomps its way over to us. Just in time for Winter to finish his chant. With a repeat of his spell from the earlier battle, a freezing chill washes over the field and kills all the skittering creatures like nothing. Even the boss slows down, groaning as it looms over us.

And then the spell repeats, just like last time. The second freezing gust bringing the boss to a near standstill, frost and ice forming all across its body. Dropping to one knee, Taryn calls, “Buster!” There's a shrill metal cry from his weapon as he puts the bolt straight into the monster's face.

From that point, it's a one-sided massacre.

Flare lets lose with a whole torrent of fire blasts. Mark shoots arrows faster than seems reasonably possible. Emma's creatures leap and claw at it. The others all move in around its legs and go off with their own big attacks. I even hit it with more of my magic.

There's no way the boss can take the sheer level of damage such a large group can put out, and it falls without much more than a few clawing swipes at the vanguards.

For a few moments, there's quiet, waiting for something else, but it's over. We all relax a little.

While everyone else gets any remaining injuries patched up by the healers and Azra's repairing my bow again, I stand over the body as the color goes out of its skin and it dissipates away into the air. I'm probably just being paranoid after what happened with Xanaad, but I'm not risking any creepy crawly boss heads trying to flee and do who knows what afterward.

Thankfully, nothing like that happens. It vanishes without issue, and I let out a relieved breath.