Deacon's hand shot out and halted both Sam and Jass before they could push the door open further – this was the first set of doors they'd seen that was slightly ajar.
Crouching beside the right door that was closed, he placed his hand atop it and leaned forward just enough to peek through the cracked gap of the left door. Sam and Jass crouched low, each one crouching above the other with narrowed eyes.
Through the crack, they saw a massive hexagonal-shaped courtyard that was taken over by both time and ruin. Seemingly grown from the tall grass near the walls, vines crept up the side of the manor walls as well as the various pillars and ruined statues that lay in ruin within the tall grass that swallowed the cobblestone pathing. They could also see stagnant ponds had dotted the area at random with clouds of small insects hovering above them.
But none of that was what held their attention.
Fuck me, were the collective thoughts of the trio as they saw almost translucent, light blue, glowing figures drift aimlessly around the courtyard, scattered like lost thoughts. There had to be at least two dozen, maybe more, each one leaving faint trails of light behind them as they floated. Their faces looked to be locked in agony with their mouths wide open, however, not a sound escaped from them.
Neither Deacon, Jass, nor Sam wanted to Identify them as it could draw undue attention on them. To both Deacon and Sam, these spectral beings could be operating as some sort of hive mind.
"What the actual hell are they?" Sam whispered, leaning back slightly, eyes wide. "They look like ghosts, but not at the same time… Not to mention that they're all women, not a single one of them looks like a male."
"They're Banshees," Jass said under her breath. "I've been researching different types of spectral after we first encountered them on Floor Three on the many books I downloaded on my manaphone prior to climbing. And from them I've learned that they're attracted to all living creatures, sentient or not, and kill them via their screeching." Her voice was flat, but she hadn't taken her eyes off the courtyard once.
"Would having earphones plugged in and playing music work?" Deacon asked, eyeing the far ends of the courtyard and seeing five other double doorways, one being opened fully.
Jass narrowed her eyes in thought, trying to recall any mention of doing that would be of any use. "… I don't know, but – what the fuck is that?" she said suddenly as something had caught her eye.
Nearly half a kilometer out, barely visible through the many pillars and ruined pavilions was a light orange dome of mana. A barrier. Deacon squinted, watching carefully, and saw five figures moving about within the barrier. "Looks like some other party found them first," he muttered under his breath as he saw the 3 v 2 within it.
And from what he could tell, the banshees were actively colliding with the dome and rebounding off it with short bursts of bluish light and dissonant screeches that similarly rebounded off the dome and caused the inhabitants of the dome no harm.
The dome was actively protecting them from the banshees.
Sam clicked his tongue. "How the hell are they pushing back the banshees? What are they doing to the banner to give it the ability to push back the banshees? Was it created by the banner?"
Jass leaned forward again, lips pressed into a thin line. "Probably. Which makes things… a lot more complicated 'cause we'd need to fight in that small area."
"I mean," Sam said, voice low but thoughtful as he glanced at the banshees. "Yeah..."
"But the big question is, do we join the fray?" Deacon added, keeping his eyes glued onto the 3 v 2.
Jass tapped a finger against the doorframe, calculating. "We'll never make it across the courtyard without those things noticing us. That's suicide."
"Not necessarily," Deacon nodded. "If the dome drops, the Banshees will rush towards them, and we can take advantage of that to get the drop on all of them."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "So, what? We wait for the team of three to win, and when they take the banner, we bomb rush through everything using the commotion the barrier disappearing would make?"
"Yeah," Deacon replied, pulling back from the door and stretching his shoulders. "And it looks like it's just about to happen any moment now, so Imma grease my blades now."
Jass similarly pulled back from the door to also take out both her glaive and Spectral Grease. "Sounds good."
"I'll continue to keep watch while you both do that," Sam whispered to them as his brows remained furrowed. He couldn't stop turning it over in his head – how the barrier had managed to repel the banshees.
Ever since they'd stumbled upon the Grave of the Forgotten ruins on Floor Three, and he'd seen just how useless most of his carefully practiced spells were against the spectrals, except for Manabolt, the System-granted spell from when he first got his mage class, his self-confidence had taken a serious hit.
As such, he'd been periodically visiting the Grave of the Forgotten on his own, trying out tens upon tens of spell combinations, trying to see what would work, but none had worked.
But now that could change with the barrier in front of him remaining up. If he could continue to analyze it, he could potentially – no, he would definitely be able to figure out what he was missing in his spells that would allow them to harm spectral creatures.
But he would need to figure it out fast, as the two-person team inside was losing ground fast.
Item Name: Spectral Grease
Type: Consumable – Weapon Coating
Rarity: Common
Effect: Temporarily allows physical weapons to damage Spectral creatures.
Description: A dense, firm yet soft, soap-like block of translucent blue alchemical grease. Made by Bennett Graves, a prodigious Tier 1 Alchemist. When applied to a blade, the grease disrupts spectral forms, enabling physical strikes to connect – after thirty swipes, the blade will need to be recoated.
Deacon slid out the two short swords from the sheaths across his back, placing the hilt of his left one in between his teeth as he held then took out the bar of Spectral Grease and began lathering his right short sword's blade with it as Jass knelt beside him.
"Huh, this actually looks way cooler than I thought it would," Deacon mused aloud as he saw the blade gaining a frost-like hue atop the areas it was being lathered on.
Jass, meanwhile, held her glaive steady across her knees and methodically smeared the grease along its curved edge, coating it far more heavily than Deacon, making sure to reach every part of the steel. When the last line of grease settled and the weapon pulsed with a faint glow, she gave a satisfied grunt and tucked the Spectral Grease back into her Spatial Sling Bag.
"You good?" she asked, looking at Deacon as his right short sword was being held by his teeth and he was now lathering his left short sword with the Spectral Grease.
He gave a short nod in response, but in doing so, a trail of drool left his mouth, unnoticed by him, but definitely noticed by Jass.
After he'd finished lathering his left short sword with the Spectral Grease and put it away in his own Spatial Sling Bag, both he and Jass moved back to the door where Sam was still crouched, eyes locked through the gap.
Sam didn't look back. "It's down to three now. The warriors on both sides took too much damage and ended up knocked out, not dead though – I can still Identify them. So now it's two mages versus one, and the solo mage isn't looking too hot at the moment."
Deacon peered over his shoulder. Sure enough, there were two unconscious bodies, one sprawled limply against a fallen pillar and another being protected by the two mages.
"We should go now," Deacon muttered, watching the battle warily. "If we wait any longer, we could risk losing the banner to the other team."
"Wait," Sam hissed. "Just a bit longer. I've almost figured out how the barrier works."
Deacon blinked, brow furrowing. "You've almost what?"
"Figured out how the banner is repelling the banshees," Sam whispered, keeping his gaze glued onto the orange translucent barrier protecting the five cadets from the banshees. "The structure of the barrier is using a sustained frequency mana channel in a way that functions very similarly to Manabolt. I think they're layering null zones inside the dome's matrix while using soul–"
"Okay, okay," Deacon cut in, raising a hand. "Stop. My brain already tapped out halfway through 'frequency mana channel.' Just... say when you're done analyzing."
Jass muttered something under her breath about being glad she didn't choose mage as her class, but as she was about to take a shot at Sam, all three of them suddenly felt an inexplicable cold sweat trickle down their back at a small cue, a mage gave their partner a nod.
Inside the dome, one of the mages launched a Wind Arrow straight at the opposing mage. The opposing mage protecting the banner reacted quickly, throwing up a Manashield to block the spell.
However, instead of the Wind Arrow smashing into the shield, the arrow veered mid-flight, curving around the shield and tunneled deep into the chest of the warrior lying atop a fallen pillar.
For a heartbeat, everything and everyone went still as flesh and blood gushed out of the chest of the warrior and splattered across the grass.
Then the other mage, the one standing in front of the banner, let out a raw, guttural scream, laced with immense betrayal and anger at the death of his teammate, and rushed every drop of mana he had remaining in his core and let them rush into his outstretched hands.
"Go!" Deacon barked out to Sam and Jass, slamming the door open with his shoulder, charging towards the glowing dome, his glowing blue short sword already slicing the head off a turned-around banshee in their path.
Almost immediately, as Deacon shouted, the mage, letting out a guttural scream, ignited his mana and activated everything he had on his person to boost his magic power, letting out a massive, conjoined blast of flame that appeared to have engulfed the entire inside of the barrier.
The twin mages immediately raised their arms in unison and poured as much mana as they could muster to create a conjoined Manashield to block the attack, as they had felt the grieving mage dump his entire manapool into this massive flame bast.
The barrier shuddered violently from the massive blast, its glowing orange hue flickering like a candle caught in a gale.
Both mages inside had their veins bulging out of their arms and necks beneath the strain of forcing their conjoined Manashield and forcing it to shift its angle mid-cast – just enough to take the full force of the grieving mage's final blast and redirect it.
With a high-pitched shriek of warped mana, the massive inferno skewed off the curve of the hardened shield and howled its way outward, ripping straight through one of the many ruined pavilions and barreling into the far wall where it exploded in a plume of heat and debris.
The mage who had cast it staggered forward, dazed and empty-eyed, and before he could check to see if he'd killed the mages that had killed his teammate, a single Wind Arrow buried itself straight through his chest and pierced through his heart.
He was barely able to turn his head toward his teammate for one last time as blood gushed out of his chest and splattered onto the floor. He barely made it a step closer to his teammate before he fell atop the bloodied and scorched grass lifelessly.
"Fuck!" Deacon shouted as his left blade severed a banshee's jaw mid-lunge, cutting off its baleful shriek. His right, glowing blue short sword, drove up through the eye socket of another just as it lunged, reacting to the sudden explosion that erupted from the barrier. Behind him, Jass swept in, her glaive carving a wide, brutal arc that reduced three more banshees to drifting wisps of blue smoke and dust.
Behind them, Sam moved like a shade himself, arms weaving in circular patterns, manipulating Gust around their trio, pushing the wind in front of them to be behind their backs, effectively tripling their speed while doing his best to lessen the effects of their shrieks.
Inside the dome, the surviving mage knelt beside their unconscious teammate, the warrior, and yanked open his Pouch of Holding, and from it, she retrieved a small obsidian vial, popped open its cork, and waved it hard under the man's nose – glancing up for a moment as they took notice that the barrier fixed itself.
The reaction it provided was instant as the warrior's back arched violently, and his body spasmed back to life with a rasping inhale, bloodshot eyes flying open.
Muttering a quick thanks, the warrior shakily pushed himself up and took a couple of seconds to fully wake up before he began to make his way toward the glowing orange banner embroidered with the words Rising Sun in a burnt orange thread.
The very moment his fingers closed around the Banner's pole, a Wind Arrow pierced through his right thigh, causing him to let out a suppressing shout of pain, and causing the two mages beside him to spin on their heels in surprise as they saw Deacon, Jass, and Sam enter the orange barrier.