At some point in the rift Palinus began to genuinely consider the advantages of making himself deaf before every rift. Right from the outset he was locked in. With his intense focus on only his positioning, rather than worrying about everything, he dominated his lane opponent a nervous looking girl with a typical red mage aspect and carrying a wand limply in her right hand.

Every wave he would wade through the minions and threaten the red mage. His movement would force her to retreat or to take a few lashes from his whip. The couple of times that she had tried to exchange blows she had found that he would come out ahead on the damage he could deal.

Once he had taken a level advantage he picked up his new smoke shield ars and with its shield effect and additional damage buff he could push her away from the minions all together.

After multiple waves, help finally came for the girl in the form of a swordsman charging out of the bushes towards Palinus for a gank.

It was laughably easy for him to run from the swordsman under his Saturnine Veil. If they had been smart the swordsman would have retreated and circled back around with the ars on cooldown, but instead he desperately charged after Palinus as he backpedalled and piled damage on the boy.

As Rufian appeared out of the brush and punched the swordsman in the back of the head with a staggering effect the fight was decided and with his charging ars to knock up the red mage and Palinus was able to pick up the final blow on both of the opponents to give him an additional level advantage.

His lead snowballed out of control as he was able to pick up a third and fourth level that he put in his flagellant secondary class giving him a multistrike and a burning effect on strike even when his shield ars was on cooldown.

A very small part of Palinus felt bad for the red mage that the enemy team kept sending to the middle lane. He managed to kill her avatar several times by himself, and even when their roamer came to attack it simply slowed him down as he simply manouvered and switched targets to the swordsman.

On the third attempted gank, Palinus was able to kill both the swordsman and the red mage. They had been able to do significant damage, but his shield ars and its consistent draining of the nearby burning minions was able to keep him safe as he attacked and moved constantly under the Saturnine Veil and whittled down the swordsman then he survived the red mages desperate burst damage to finish here avatar off as well.

He barely gave a second thought to the solo double kill as he was more excited by the feeling of essentia building within him that told him he had hit level 5 for the first time. He stood amongst the scattered essentia beads as he inspected his options and was intrigued by a change.

Flagellant

Smoke Mage

Mage

Ars

Vengeful Strike

Smokeball

Magic Missiles

Attunement

nil

nil

nil

Cooldown

45 seconds

60 seconds

30 seconds

Compatibility

n/a

n/a

n/a

Skill Type

Enhancement

Projectile, Area

Projectile

Slot

[Chest, Shoulder]

[Fist, hand, wrist]

[Fist, hand, wrist]

Slot Bonus

n/a

n/a

n/a

Description

Add [2] * [% Health Missing] damage to the next [1] attack.

Shoot a lingering [3 sec] smokeball damaging everything [150] within [2m] on strike and every [1 sec]. Applies [Burning].

Shoot three bolts of energy doing [50] damage each to one target.

It looked like his essentia had finally reaspected sufficiently to push him away from the generic red mage path making his generic ars tak on his smoke aspect. The constant use of his shield ars had likely accelerated it and Palinus was excited to see what changes would come with the shift.

The decision on what to choose was challenging. In this rift it probably wouldn't make much of a difference but the Smoke Ball adding a multi target source of [Burning] was extremely useful and the damage over time aspect could stack up significant damage to a slowed or rooted enemy - which his team had multiple ways of achieving.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Ultimately Palinus decided to take Vengeful Strike. It was situationally effective and potentially devastating if the enemy decided to attempt to duel him directly again, but the deciding factor was that it was likely to be able to add the damage to attacks against towers. So he could take some hits from the tower to return an attack with a significant damage modifier.

The feeling of power and the single minded focus of not being able to hear unfortunately did not last for much longer as the rift came to a head not long later with the whole team joining him to push down the middle lane and force a victory not long later.

As they jogged back through the rift to the exit Palinus could see the team talking animatedly and felt a sense of isolation and sadness not being able to hear and join in with the good mood. As they reached the exit portal Seline stopped them and got quite serious. She gestured for Palinus to put his weapon up and mimed to get ready to run.

She didn't need to tell him twice, they were going to be returning to the overworld and their bodies were likely already under fire even with the protection of the rift.

Explosions rocked the earth beneath him as Palinus returned to his body.

He tried to push his sore body off the ground and found himself in a state of claustrophobic panic as he realised that he couldn't stand up. Someone was crouched over him and leaning on his back, all around the team was a wall of bodies pressed together.

The conscript squatting above him was yelling incomprehensibly and it took Palinus a few moments to recognise the boy as the spotter from the 9th century. He was relieved to see coverage of a wall of conscripts and shields in a massive testudo formation. Dozens of ars were flaring around him and he latched onto a familiar signature that targeted him.

*Pop* as something within his ears popped there was a brief flare of pain which immediately eased with a wave of relief. The buzzing of voices yelling around him suddenly came into focus as the healing ars took affect.

"Thanks Vesuvia," Palinuis said as he forced his way to a crouch.

Around him the team were looking at him with complicated expressions.

"You are an absolute idiot Pal," Seline stated flatly, " but you carried us in that rift…"

"He had help!" Rufian scoffed.

"Sorry-" Palinus started apologising before he was cut off by the 9th century spotter.

"Good job with the rift, Austo said you would smash it… but we are going to have to dive pretty far. The rift is right against the wall, so if you can win it quickly it will give us a breech to attack and then there would jsut be one rift left to win! You ready?"

Through the wall of shields ahead of them they could make out the left tower of the hill fort. They were a touch over a hundred meters away with the rift opening ahead of them set just besides the closed door to the tower.

"Forward!" The order went out and the wall of shields advanced.

They moved at a steady pace and with almost the full century protecting them they didn't need to stop with multiple defensive ars on a tightly controlled rotation to block the strikes from the defensive canons.

"OK.." Rufian started saying something and his odd tone and expression drew the attention of the whole team, "... I am going to have to apologise to Centurion Armiger… But only for this one thing! This is actually pretty amazing, maybe over legion tactics have some merit…"

His face twisted in pain to admit it and the expression made Palinus and Bruchts laugh uproariously.

They kept their heads down and stayed as close to each other as they could while they shuffled with the formation. With frequent stops and their slow progress it took them several minutes to cover the distance to the rift.

There was a disturbance in the formation as one of the conscripts carrying the staff of some sort of support or control mage started arguing with the spotter. He shushed the girl as he turned to Seline.

"Things are getting bad. She is saying that there isn't much time…" The boy looked perturbed and gave Seline a complicated expression.

"Shit." Seline swore. "We are so close... we will just try and make it quick."

The boy gave a grimacing nod in response before he turned and whispered to the girl.

"... they need to focus and not worry about that…" Palinus only caught part of their conversation but even while they had their whispered argument the girl channeled an ars up into the air which draped the area in a thick fog. They used the cover of the fog, several defensive ars and the protection of the rift itself to sprint into battle.

As he ran Palinus could hear the conscripts from the 1st cohort on the walls above them. They were laughing and bantering as though unbothered that the attack had made it to their wall. It struck him as odd as he and the team plunged into the rift.

The rift turned out to be a rematch and Palinus was excited to match up against the red mage again.

Unfortunatly, the mental exhaustion of the day was catching up to them and they made some mistakes. The enemy team were also far less reckless.

In the first major exchange in Palinus's lane the roaming swordsman baited his Saturnine Veil ars and forced him to retreat out of the lane multiple times to give the red mage an even footing in their matchup.

Rufian also mistimed several ganks and gave away first blood in the top lane to give the opposition an early advantage which they leveraged into several kills against Palinus and the team.

Ultimately they still managed a victory, but it took them almost an hour to grind it out.

By the end of the battle they were frustrated by the pleased faces of the enemy team and the length of time they had taken for the unsatisfying win, it felt like a defeat.

"Surely the battle is over." Palinus commented.

"It likely is," Vesuvia replied "I didn't want to say anything before this rift… but the battlefield essentia was shifting pretty wildly before we entered and looked pretty clearly in the 1st cohort's favour. I think that was what the girl from the 9th century was saying, suggesting we didn't bother with the rift."

The boys gave a chorus of groans.

"Rolmnus did us a favour not saying anything and getting us in here," Seline said with a sigh, referring to the boy acting as a spotter, "...and a long rift is good for our essentia generation if it is going to be the last of the battle."

She was trying to spin the positives of the situation. But Palinus knew what she was really thinking and he felt the same frustration. This battle might have been winnable if it wasn't for the lack of foresight and corruption of Centurion Armiger and the man in command like him. All of their effort seemed a bit pointless.

"We should be ready for combat, just in case." Seline said with another deep sigh as she stepped towards the rift.

The sound of a cannon made Palinus flinch as he jerked into consciousness.

The laughter that followed the blast was incongruous, and a few moments later an officer began yelling and berating the conscripts who had fired it.

Ahead of them the door to the fort stood wide open and conscripts marked as their allies from the 9th century were walking in through it. Their exhaustion and soreness evident from limps and slouches which were multiplied by their defeat.

The 1st cohort conscripts were in a much different mood, they cheered and joked as they moved about the fort.

"It's over? Just like that?" Palinus said blankly.

"Seems like it." Bruchts acknowledged flatly as the team returned to consciousness around them on the ground.

"Marked up another win! Good job!" Centurion Austo appeared from behind them, his chipper attitude juxtaposing the frustration Palinus and his friends felt.

The centurion laughed at the team quietly stewing.

"You were always going to struggle on the forest side. It is just too hard to defend against a push up the middle, but you put up a fantastic showing! You will be strong contenders at the rankings."

"What rankings?" Palinus asked too slowly as the centurion had already marched off into the fort.

"Rift teams get assigned a ranking based on their performance, didn't you know that?" Seline answered with a surprised expression "It isn't just for the training cohort. We will get a ranking that we will carry once we leave too, it affects what assignments and posts we can take."

"Eh," Palinus was intrigued but he still wasn't happy with the sudden loss.

"It's also where they hand out bonus loot!" Vesuvia added excitedly as they walked into the fort.

It felt surreal to simply be walking through the doors. They stepped through and into a tower room that looked similar in shape to the towers down the hill, though this one was made of thick wood in long curved beams..

As Palinus stared up at the high ceiling he missed the group approaching them.

"Thanks for taking it easy on us that time," the red mage from the rift said, mostly to Palinus, "You guys are scary!"

"Oh," he was taken aback by the comment. It amplified his current frustration as he hadn't meant to 'take it easy,' in the slightest but as tried to say something witty back he looked at the red mage's face and he realised she was being genuine, and that she was pretty.

"Urp," he stammered.

"I'm Favia," she said witha laugh, flicking her long dark hair. "They are setting up a meal now the battle is over. Do you want to come and eat with us?"

With a gulp Palinus looked for help from his team. Rufian laughed as he answered for Palinus.

"We'd love to."

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