Mage Tank

Chapter 173: Surprise Mimicry

The next section of the Delve was a dimensional maze. The hallway ended at a T-junction, each side of which led to a crossroad with 3 more potential paths to choose from.

[There are 40 potential junctions. When a path is chosen it will lead to 1 of 3 additional junctions, with 1 junction having a 66 percent chance of being selected, the second having a 23 percent chance, and the last having 11 percent. The goal of the maze is to follow the junctions in a specific sequence, which will lead to the exit.]

“How do they know which junction to choose?”

[The tablets in the cave wall of the Pound gave clues buried in the mythos of the Void King. Each junction has a unique arrangement of traps, decorations, mana monsters, and so on which relate to specific events in the Void King’s life. An astute Delver will be able to determine the path with the best probability of leading the way forward.]

“So it’s similar to the divine maze in The Descent, but with dimensional shenanigans.”

[Yes, but choosing the correct path will continuously lead to more dangerous encounters.]

“They didn’t have much time to look at those tablets. If they rely on trial and error, then all they have to do is try to keep repeating the junctions with the highest difficulty they’ve found?”

[It is possible to brute force the puzzle that way, but it will take much longer. Their current attempts at caution would cause them to run out of time.]

They did not run out of time.

Sgt. Baltae turned out to be something of an investigator. The spatial mage took the lead, paused briefly at each intersection to close his eyes, and then always picked the most optimal path. They had a few setbacks due to bad luck with the probabilities, but there was no way they could have done the maze any more efficiently. It took them around 2 hours, leaving them a little over 3 hours remaining.

That didn’t mean the maze didn’t take anything out of them. Despite Sgt. Baltae’s talent with memory, puzzle solving, and threat detection, his skill with neutralizing the traps they came across was underdeveloped compared to his ability to find them in the first place. His party relied on avoiding traps rather than disarming them.

However, many of the traps were seemingly unavoidable, leading to Dimensional attacks, more collapsing walls, and waves of teleporting spiders that did little damage but loaded the Littans up with Toxicity, among other things. By the time they’d escaped, three of them had taken significant damage. Captain Pio had burned a lot of mana on Heal, Shielding, and Cleanse, and the tank had dumped big chunks of stamina on AoE attacks.

Sgt. Madel came out in the best shape. Her machine-gun attack speed didn’t look like it relied on any techniques, so she could tear through enemies all day without running out of juice. Her flight skill and Speed kept her out of the way of much of the danger, and anytime something got close enough to attack her, she would disappear and stab it–or something else–in the back.

The trade-off was that she didn’t have any utility and was best equipped for dealing with 1 enemy at a time. She was a dedicated elite killer whose main contribution was inexhaustible single-target damage. Invaluable in many circumstances, but useless for drawn-out puzzles and traps. Even the waves of spiders were a bad matchup since there were hundreds of the creatures and she could kill at most 6 or 7 at a time, whereas Sgt. Guar and Sgt. Baltae could spam AoEs that hit everything within a certain radius.

The stealth specialist never made an appearance. In fact, I’d forgotten the person even existed by the time they were out of the probability maze.

The maze terminated in a small palace filled with cursed loot. Baltae easily discerned the hazards the items posed, and the group was forced to rush through since several of the items had blanket effects that would slowly drain their maximum health through Wicked damage. That couldn’t be healed, and would only recover through natural regeneration. Even potions didn’t help.

“Where in the hells did you find all that cursed shit? Did you craft it all?”

[Most are relics you recovered from The Mimic Delve while you recklessly looted entire chambers of their contents.]

“Hey, Etja and I looked those over. We left all the creepy paraphernalia behind and none of what we picked up was magical, as far as we could tell.”

[They were drained of mana when you discovered them, and I suspect that is how The Mimic fed. After being refreshed, many had fascinating effects.]

“Shit. Were any of them mimics?”

[Yes. Eleven of the items were mimics biding their time, but they became inert once you defeated The Mimic.]

“Ah. Good idea containing all the cursed stuff in one place, I guess.”

[The Blighted Vault of the Void King is one of my favorite areas and includes a ledger that lists each item and the forbidden realm in which it was discovered. It is a shame they did not spend more time inside. I was unable to test some of the relics and was curious about their effects.]

“Good thing they, uh, didn’t let their inner lootbugs cloud their judgment.”

Having avoided the perils of careless greed–a vice even the most talented and discerning Delver might sometimes fall prey to–the Littans advanced into the most hostile chamber yet.

The floor was a field of jagged spikes, tipped with space-warping energy that would shred even the thickest of armor. It was untraversable through normal means, and I suspected the Littans would struggle with this one. Beyond the field of spikes was a lake that abutted a slightly curved wall, with no obvious exits to the arena-sized room. To make matters worse, the ceiling was 200 feet above, covered in large stalactites, and the home of two dozen more Abyssal Gekkogs.

The party was given two minutes to hang out on a small platform, survey the room, and plan. Then, needles started warping into their flesh.

Captain Pio covered the group with more Shielding and Sgt. Guar spawned a dome of energy that emanated from his roundshield and created temporary cover. Unfortunately, the Gekkogs didn’t care about the transparent obstruction, and their needles portalled through Guar’s countermeasure without issue. It was the first time I’d seen one of the Littans make a serious tactical error.

The Gekkogs were also smarter than I’d initially given them credit for. Without Guar serving as a meat shield for the others, the Gekkogs focused half of their attacks on Sgt. Baltae, whose Shielding immediately shattered and whose body glowed blue as Mana Barrier soaked damage and probably saved the man’s life. The other half focused on Captain Pio, but the woman was much tankier than she looked, blocking most of the attacks with her Shield and eating the rest without any visible reaction, even when needles skewered through her limbs.

Lt. Madel rocketed toward the ceiling, her body stuttering in and out of existence as portals shunted her forward to augment her substantial velocity. She made it to the first Gekkog in under a second, slaughtering it with 3 attacks before disappearing and reappearing next to another Gekkog which she eviscerated with the same ease. The creatures were using Optical Camouflage, but Madel had some way of perceiving them despite this.

The Gekkogs redirected and concentrated fire on Lt. Madel. Despite the woman’s insane Speed and nigh-miraculous capacity to DODGE, she couldn’t avoid everything and started taking hits. However, her sacrifice took the pressure off the group below, allowing Pio to Heal and Cleanse. The surprise attack was much more effective than the last round of Gekkogs, and Sgt. Baltae was on the ground, bleeding heavily as Pio concentrated her efforts on keeping the man from death’s cold embrace.

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Sgt. Baltae was the team’s main source of ranged damage, and with him out of the fight it was up to Madel to fly between each Gekkog and deal with it personally. Guar took a position over Pio and Baltae, obscuring the pair from sight. The Gekkogs could hit anything they could see, which is how they avoided Guar’s dome, but couldn’t see through the wall of metal-clad Littan.

Lt. Madel finally used a technique, and a dozen copies of her throwing daggers fanned out in front of her, striking 3 of the Gekkogs. She disappeared and caught one of the knives as it flew, redirecting it back into the Gekkog it had missed, then thrust her shortsword into its neck. As it fell, she was already blurring to the next Gekkog, connecting with a 3-hit combo of hammer, spear, and blade.

She began spamming her dagger attack and moving off Gekkogs before they were dead, letting the Bleeding and Toxicity finish them. She used the time to make attacks on the others, despite needles raining into her from the ones dying to her DoTs. She’d taken some serious damage, and the moment she’d cleared the enemies she hurtled toward the ground, blood pouring from a dozen wounds. Pio hit her with a Cleanse as soon as she was in range, and Madel crashed into the platform in a heap, nearly sliding off of it and into the spikes. A streak of vomit ran across the floor as Madel’s body tried to purge itself of an onslaught of poison.

Pio burned another Cleanse and pushed 2 Heals into the Lieutenant, then knelt to the ground, fingers rubbing at her temple.

I thought over the encounter and how my party might have handled it. Out of the gate, See and Reveal would have pierced the camo. Based on the damage numbers Grotto had given me, both Varrin and I had enough defense and DR to be nearly immune to the Kinetic damage. Xim wouldn’t have struggled either. All three of us had bonuses to resisting poison, and I was immune to Bleeding.

Next, everyone in the party had a way to deal with enemies 200 feet above us. Three of us could fly, Nuralie could teleport in the dim cavern, and four of us could output serious ranged damage. The sneak attack might have spelled trouble for Etja, but between her Mana Barrier and my Life Warden, she wouldn’t have ended up in as dire straits as Sgt. Baltae.

It wasn’t a fair comparison, of course. We had significantly higher stats than this level 15 party, and our experience with platinum Delves prepared us for this kind of obnoxious setup. The Littans were currently having a serious psychic conversation, and I expected it was going something like “Fuck! This shit is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!”

While the encounter revealed some shortcomings in the Littan party comp, they’d ultimately had the tools needed to overcome it. Sgt. Guar wasn’t in much danger from the Gekkogs, and had he not been defending Baltae, I was certain he’d found some way to launch himself to the ceiling. The man could probably jump that high or just start chucking his hammer as any sensible Blunt wielder should.

There also hadn’t been any Cursed stacks flying around, so the stealth fighter was MIA, making them a 4-person team for the fight.

“What do you think?” I asked Grotto.

[They excel at close combat and mid-range fighting but struggle with long-range encounters. Sgt. Baltae has exceptional perception skills, but it did not extend far enough to notice the Gekkogs before they attacked. Each party member has a narrow focus and is very good at their individual tasks, but if only one member has the appropriate skills for a fight, they rely on Captain Pio’s support and healing to endure. If Pio were to be neutralized, I believe the team would quickly fall apart. She is, however, quite difficult to kill as you can see.]

“How do they compare to other golds you’ve dealt with?”

[That encounter would have obliterated an average gold team at their level. Remember that this is rated as a gold Expansion Delve. That puts it on par with a similarly leveled platinum. Despite each Littan being highly specialized, their abilities have strong synergy and enough overlap to have some redundancy. If Lt. Madel had been unable to respond, the loss of Sgt. Baltae for the fight would have likely spelled their doom.]

Captain Pio pulled out a mana potion and drank it, then handed a stamina potion to Sgt. Guar. The Littans were finally getting a few minutes to collect themselves.

“No more forced advancement? Let me guess, you’re going to collapse that platform they’re sitting on. The terrain barely mattered, other than forcing them to stay in one place.”

[There should have been another wave. One moment.]

I allowed my vision to mirror Grotto’s, following him toward the edge of the cavern’s roof, where several recesses led to more Gekkog hidey holes. There was a burrow within where the Gekkogs made their nests.

It was total pandemonium.

Another 13 Gekkogs were in a complete battle royale. Some were Berserked, others had full-blown Psychotic debuffs, and several were fighting one another for no discernable reason. The ones that still had control of their faculties were either Weakened, Paranoid, Feared, or Paralyzed, and every Gekkog in the burrow had stacks of Cursed growing completely out of control.

Amidst the frenzy, only one Gekkog was uninjured, and it stalked between the others while avoiding the fight. I tried to bring up its notifications, but nothing came back. I couldn’t even identify it. Once the other 12 Gekkogs were Cursed to shit and half-dead, it opened its mouth and fired an attack spell at the Gekkog that looked to be in the best shape.

You have observed the Bog Standard Psychic Blast spell!

Bog Standard Psychic Blast

Spiritual

Cost: 5 mana

Requirements: Spiritual Magic

Make a CHA spell attack against an entity you can perceive within a number of feet of you equal to 20 plus your Spiritual Magic skill level. This attack deals Psychic damage.

[That is not one of our minions.]

After firing its attack, the imposter deftly slipped behind another Gekkog. The Psychic attack tore at the soul of its target Gekkog, which spun in response and searched for the source of the assault. It locked onto the Gekkog the imposter hid behind, screeched, and fired a stinger into its ally’s giant mouth. This sort of whodunnit combat went on for another minute until the imposter finished off the final survivor. It then began rooting around the burrow, digging through nests and poking at the bodies.

“Is it… trying to loot right now?”

This was certainly the missing fifth member of the Littan party, but nothing I had could pierce the disguise. See had no effect, and not even its soul looked out of place compared to the normal Gekkogs. The Gekkog also drifted in and out of my awareness, even though I intently followed its movements. My mind kept pushing the idea that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on in front of me, despite how absurd that thought was.

Eventually, the Gekkog finished its perusal, and its body began to shrink. Over the next minute, it slowly morphed into a small blue bird. It spread its wings and took off. Like a fly darting out of my vision, it disappeared.

You have observed the Mimicry spell!

Mimicry

Physical - Deific

Cost: 20+ mana reserved

Requirements: WIS 20, CHA 20, Dimensional Magic 10, Physical Magic 10, Subterfuge 10, Shapeshifter Evolution, Keeper of Silence Achievement

Choose a person or object you can perceive. As a 1-minute activity, you can manipulate your body to take on the physical characteristics of that entity, duplicating not only its form but all materials that comprise it.

Entities with a WIS lower than your WIS cannot discern the difference between your modified form and the original person or object from physical characteristics alone. Entities with a WIS lower than your CHA automatically assume you are the person or object unless their attention is called to the deception. Even then, they must pass a WIS check opposed by your CHA to have the assumption broken. Otherwise, they say, “Huh, must have been the wind,” and move on.

If the person or object has a volume more than 20% larger or smaller than your own, you may reserve additional mana up to your Physical Magic skill level during this 1-minute activity. For every 10 additional mana reserved, you may adjust your volume by an additional cubic foot. (For reference, an average humanoid has a volume of ~2-3 cubic feet.)

“They’re a fucking mimic!”

[I was not aware of this spell.]

“I mean… it’s the ‘I’m a fucking mimic’ spell.”

[I understand the concept, but I have never seen a Delver gain the full capabilities of a mimic.]

I read over the text of the spell again.

“Even with all this, it doesn’t explain how they slide in and out of perception, or why it’s so easy to ignore them. If anything, they’re an even better mimic than the mimics we fought.”

[They likely have an entire build centered around the skill. Evolutions such as Master of Disguise or Grey Man would be excellent in combination.]

“They infiltrate, curse everyone, then walk away with no one the wiser. It’s not an illusion or mental effect, so resistances don’t matter. Hells, I don’t think it could even be targeted with Dispel once they’ve transformed. Scary.”

[My query on the Keeper of Silence achievement has it listed as a level 10 special Delve reward. It replaces the active skill option Enhance Attribute granted by the Physical Magic evolution Shapeshifter.]

“While the rest of their party struggled, dude or dudette just walked in and killed a whole extended family of Gekkogs. Didn’t take a single point of damage.”

[Yes. The strategy was quite effective against this enemy type. Let us see how they fare against the Atrocidile Titan.]

“The what now?”

The lake beyond the field of spikes erupted, revealing a too-human face stretched across a 20-foot-wide, football-shaped skull. Bulbous orange eyes rolled in their sockets as the creature let out a familiar bellowing moan, like the dying screams of a ten-thousand-pound infant.

Abyssal Atrocidile Titan: Abomination, Grade 20

“Hmm. It’s bigger than I remember.”

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