BronzePaw didn’t even bother jumping into them before she slammed her foot on the ground, starting the fight off with a great ground-shattering [Earthquake]. There was a part of Guin that really hated that ability, and she cursed as she and Ibraxis scrambled to get out of the growing crater so they wouldn’t be swept up in the chaos along with their enemies. She had to admit, though, that it was the perfect way to get the agro of a very large area.

  “What the—Does she always start fights like that?” Ibraxis asked with utter disbelief. “Is she trying to kill us, too?”

  “I’m not going to make any kind of guesses about what she wants to do to you,” Guin snorted at him. He seemed to have nothing to say to that as he nodded, then shot his head up when Paw’s health bar started falling.

  A sparkling, chromatic cloud descended on the archers and casters in the back, and Star radioed in: “Mission successful! Casters and archers are asleep.” She then added cheerfully, “And I did it after Paw destroyed all the things. Aren’t you proud?”

  “Oh, very,” Guin grinned and summoned her spear. She added Drakov to the conversation and said, “White robe first—you two, on me!”

  “Roger that!”

  Leaving Ibraxis, Guin dashed around the broken stretch of land where BronzePaw was battling. She saw the archers first, swaying as they stood with a starry kind of effect spinning around their heads to indicate their status. When the sleeping casters came into view, she stepped into the shadow of the white-robed caster and executed a critical [Backstab] with her blade-like claws, followed up with a [Wind Blade] and a [Trip]. A rain of [Magic Missiles] and a trio of green-colored [Poison Arrow]s left the caster on the ground before she could recover. The cleric’s hands began to glow with white light as she tried to chant, but Guin stabbed her, interrupting the cast, and a [Flaming Arrow] ended her life.

  With the cleric taken down, they moved to the mage—which was almost as easy to deal with. Guin got hit by a couple of instant damage over time spells, but Tea’s healing songs were plenty to keep up with the amount of damage.

  Over the open comm, Guin could tell that BronzePaw was struggling to keep the agro of the three melee opponents. It didn’t help that she wasn’t doing much damage, but with DPS having taken out their healer and their glass cannon, the intelligent type of AI that these humanoids were acting eager to go to the aid of their ranged members.

  All that was left of their back line was the archers.

  “Guin, [Sand Sleep] is about to wear off!” Starshine said quickly.

  Thrusting her claws into the back of the first archer, Guin glanced at the other. He started to twitch. Hissing through her teeth, she pummeled the archer with the same treatment casters had gotten—but it wasn’t nearly as effective. Backing off, she watched as Star’s magic was mostly absorbed, and the archer barely registered Drakov’s arrows—when they hit. Most just bounced off.

  Cursing under her breath, she went after the archer again, dancing around a short sword he had drawn to combat her in close combat. Her claws struck the gambeson and tore at it, leaving a mark where the cloth was cut, but it wasn’t deep enough to do the archer any actual damage.

  Drakov’s arrows bounced off again.

  “Drakov, you’ll either need something armor piercing or something a lot more magical than poison arrows; whatever you are sending at him isn’t doing much,” Guin said.

  “I don’t think my magic is doing much, either,” Star said ruefully.

  “My guess is that whatever gear they have has some high magic resistance,” Drakov growled. “I”ll try a dragon arrow.”

  “I’ll try—” Star started, then went, “Heeh. Mr. Archer number two is waking up! How convenient. I’ll use him!”

  The archer caught Guin’s arm with his sword, making her wince and back off a bit. “Whatever you are going to do, do it fast, please!” Guin called, throwing a [Wind Blade].

  They had never really fought humanoid opponents before—especially not ones that were as well armored as these guys were. In the Catacombs, the skeletons had armor, but it was hardly what one would call usable, let alone anything that would have posed a real challenge. Between the levels of her team and the quality of their opponent’s gear, their usual tactics wouldn’t be of that much use beyond the squishy targets.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  An arrow flew a little too close to her face, nicking her as it passed—but hit the archer’s gambeson with decent force. The archer that had been shot looked confused—as confused as Guin felt, considering that Drakov was in the opposite direction. Turning quickly, Guin saw that the stars circling the archer’s head before had turned into hearts.

  It was a charm spell.

  “I don’t think that worked as well as I wanted it to,” Star said in annoyance.

  Guin laughed, then dodged another swipe of the archer’s blade as he lunged at her. She retreated a bit, then sent another [Wind Blade] out, pushing him back a bit.

  “At least it keeps him from firing at me,” Guin said.

  “It only lasts about a minute, though—Watch it!” Star shouted as the archer took out his sword and tried shooting her at close range—but Guin stepped into his shadow and backstabbed him again.

  An arrow that looked like it was made of glass suddenly hit the archer’s arm. It looked like it had ignored the armor completely, and he cried out in pain as he looked at it in utter disbelief.

  “Did that work?” Drakov asked.

  “Yeah!” Guin answered. “What the hell was that?”

  He didn’t sound as confident as she thought he should have when he said, “It’s an ability called [Glass Dragon Arrow].” Dismally, he continued, “The cast time is super long, but it's the only thing I have that can deal with armor right now!”

  “Guin—Time’s up!” Star shouted—a bit too late.

  Pain burned through her leg as she turned to see that the charm had worn off the other archer. Taking advantage of her injured state, the first archer drew his sword again and advanced on her.

  As she pulled the arrow from her leg and allowed Tea’s healing song to patch her up, she quickly scanned the battleground, searching for some sort of strategy she could use to make up for cast times and lack of effective abilities.

  Above them, Star had drawn up three magic circles in pinkish light. It was impressive to see, even if Guin had no idea what she was casting. She assumed that it was a bunch of [Magic Missles]. If her cast times weren’t so long, the witch would be a real terror against opponents who weren’t so resistant to magic damage.

  Back on the ground, she could see BronzePaw struggling. Though she was trying to make it appear as if she were entertaining a challenge more than trying to handle the apparent difficulty factor of the fight, Guin could see flickers of an unusual amount of defensiveness as she kept her opponents reined into the small area. She crushed the land beneath her feet, summoned jagged rocks that left her enemies staggering, and, when she could manage it, used every part of her body that could punch, kick, or trip to do so. It was like a form of art—but it was restrained for BronzePaw.

  Captain Othren wasn’t quite as impressed by any of it as Guin was. The weight of the great sword he wielded seemed as if it were nothing to him as he deftly maneuvered over the mess that Paw had made of the terrain. When she attacked, he made just the slightest movements so that he was just out of reach of her attacks. As Guin watched, he rose the impossibly thick blade over his head and brought it down, aiming for BronzePaw, but she rolled out of the way before it crashed in the ground, breaking the dirt below into even more pieces than it already was.

  Just beyond that scene, Guin could barely make out Ibraxis. Guin wondered briefly about the limitations that would be placed on him in a place with this much corruption, given that he needed to purify whatever element he was using — but he seemed to be able to get away with keeping Paw alive. She’d never seen him look quite so serious, however.

  She wasn’t sure where Tea and Drakov were, but she could hear Tea’s badly performed songs as status buffs flickered in and out of existence under her the health bar at the top of her vision.

  They might have bitten off more than they could chew.

  Her heart sank a bit as her confidence wavered.

  Guin quickly danced around to dodge the one archer’s blade and the other archer’s arrows. The archer’s blade sliced in a wide, obvious arc—but there was more purpose in keeping her from attacking the ranged fighter than there was in him actually causing her damage. Snorting at the first archer as he nearly tripped over his own two feet in his efforts to keep her on her toes, she sent another arc of [Wind Blade] at him. It was, to some degree, more effective than her claws to do so, but not by much. The armor has to have some sort of durability! She realized and aimed her next attack at the same area. A lance-shaped [Wind Blade] left a visible hole in the chest of the archer’s armor. White, ragged fluff was exposed to the air—and to future attacks.

  “Star, Drakov!” Guin called. “Aim for the damaged areas of the armor!

  As they struck, the armor was successfully damaged—but it was dreadfully slow. In addition, with the second archer constantly attacking her, being able to aim accurately all the time was a challenge.

  Wracking her mind for things she could do, she then remembered something. Something she hadn’t had the chance to try yet. It wasn’t the greatest time for them to do so, but if it did turn out to be something they could use...

  Guin turned off her comms.

  “Liorax,” she mumbled under her breath as she pulled back away. The blue-gray cat appeared before her, wrapped around her shoulders.

  “Well then,” he purred. “Look at you, calling me out while you are fighting away. How can I be of service, my candidate?”

  “What does [Pandora’s Box] do?”