Mage Among Superheroes

Unlike the time with Fluffy, Zeb actually had abilities now and some amount of combat experience. Which mostly ended up being her dangling from one leg from the dire bat while Fluffy faced its wrath from the front, his thick fur preventing its bites from being terribly serious.

It sure caused quite a ruckus, screeching and flailing as it hadn’t expected the coordinated ‘counterattack’. Zeb was constantly trying to say something, but I couldn’t really understand her with her mouth full of the creature’s leg. Then she seemed to have some sort of revelation as it battered her away with its wings.

“I’ve got it!” she yelled as she charged back in.

I wasn’t sure if offering to help would ruin the whole beastmaster bonding ritual. Then again, Lyklor was watching with a grin on his face, so things were probably going fine. Or maybe we were looking at the fun sort of disaster.

Zeb and Fluffy had grounded the large bat, and Zeb climbed up onto its back behind its head. “You-” its wing slapped into her as she tried to wrestle with it, “-need. To. Become. My. Friend!”

At that dramatic moment, Fluffy let go and… the bat sent Zeb tumbling off its back. Zeb and Fluffy faced off against the bat as it drew to its full height, taller than a human. It screeched at them.

“Nice to meet you too!” Zeb said. “I’m Zeb. This is Fluffy. And you’re… Miss Flutter!”

The bat staggered forward a step.

“I’m sorry about your leg. I didn’t mean to bite it that hard!”

I tried to determine if Zeb’s Force Armor was still in play. I really didn’t want her face to get bitten.

The bat staggered forward once more… and wrapped its wings around the other two. I could only see Zeb’s tail wagging.

“Seems that worked, then,” I said.

“Yeah!” Zeb called from within the cocoon. “Umm, Anielka, can you heal Miss Flutter?”

The cleric stepped forward. “You’re supposed to call me Bandage.”

Zeb extracted herself from the bat zone. “Do you like being called that?”

Bandage sighed. “Just make sure to do it once we’re back in New Bay. I’d rather minimize how much my identity is public.”

“Okay!” Zeb said.

The damage to Miss Flutter was actually quite minor, relatively speaking. Zeb hadn’t been trying to cause damage as much as she’d been trying to hold on. It merely happened that she had to bite hard enough to draw blood, given how much the dire bat was struggling against her.

Zeb seemed like she might do well with Aspect of the Barbarian. Then again, being able to get experience from normal activities was probably better overall. She’d certainly wrestled with Fluffy a lot, but just generally taking care of a beast was apparently sufficient to gain experience.

Now she had two companions. That was something we knew could happen, but it seemed strong. From what I understood, most of the beastmaster’s strength was focused on their companions instead of things like magic. Thus, each companion should be full strength, unlike Bun and Cel who were theoretically sharing Ceira’s ability.

Food expenses might become an issue though. A mole the size of a small bear and a bat with an enormous wingspan had to eat a lot. I also had to wonder how well Miss Flutter would function outside of caves, or during the day.

“I still need a squirrel,” Zeb said. “Next one I see, for sure!”

“... Maybe they don’t like wrestling?” I commented.

“Hmm.” Zeb tilted her head. “Nah, that sounds crazy. Everyone likes wrestling!”

I shrugged. I was pretty sure some people didn’t.

-----

As it turned out, having a bat companion was extremely useful. As dire bats were native to these tunnels, Miss Flutter wasn’t out of place. She was able to scout ahead and report back, and she’d just found a group of enemies.

“How many?” Zeb asked. “Mhm, I see. Two wings full.” She turned to the rest of us. “That’s probably like… 2. Or 5 or something.”

Lyklor had greater experience, and the old elf suggested his own interpretation. “It could go up to ten.”

“They’d have to be pretty small to fit in her wings,” Zeb said. “We’re not looking for small people, are we?”

Lyklor shook his head. “I’ll explain later. The point is, I would expect more than a handful.”

Right. Now it was my job to give orders and stuff. “Was she able to tell anything more about them?”

“Uh…” Zeb made some soft barking noises and then some batlike screeches, to which the dire bat responded with some sounds but also body movements. “They seemed strong.”

“Compared to what?” I asked. “Animals in the caves or other people?”

Zeb took some time interpreting. “Maybe compared to most of us?” Zeb commented.

I pondered. “Can she determine levels somehow?” I looked at Lyklor. “Is that a thing animals can do?”

The old elf stroked his chin. “Various beasts will have different ways to assess their potential prey. It is likely less clear than a specific level… but being able to determine the approximate quantity of mana they possess would give something similar. Are you able to do the same?”

“It’s harder when it’s not active,” I said. “I could probably get within a handful of points of mana which could be like… ten levels off. Going with the assumption people are on full mana.” I took a close look at Lyklor. “Or maybe not. You’re really difficult to get a read on.”

“It could be the level difference,” he commented.

It was sometimes considered rude to ask people what level they were. Fortunately, I didn’t have to care about social niceties all the time. “So what level are you? I’m getting at least… 60.”

He grinned. “A bit higher. I’m quite old, after all.”

I wondered how powerful he would be with training. He said he’d avoided exposure to other planes but I wasn’t sure I believed him. Not that I thought he would be lying to me in particular, but probably the world in general. Or maybe he just got more levels. You could do that, if you lived hundreds of years.

It was tempting to ask him to do all the work for us, but then we wouldn’t get any experience so it was a stupid idea. And even if Flower was a really strong bat, I felt like maybe she wouldn’t be good enough alone.

“Well,” I finally said. “We found some people, and we’re here to try to eliminate them. But with their numbers and potential strength, we want to get the jump on them. Could we sneak around behind them?”

Zeb asked… and quickly responded. “There were maybe some other entrances to where they were, but they were moving this way!”

“Ah. They could be patrolling… or seeking us out in particular,” I nodded. “If we can, we should set up Miss Flutter and Flower to end up behind the enemy. Fluffy will have to hide behind the widest stalagmite we can find. Those focused on melee should try to be further forward.” I looked around at what we had to work with nearby. “I think this place should be good. Plenty of cover but a relatively clear view of the tunnel they should be coming from. I don’t suppose she could tell what weapons they had?”

“Uh… ‘human weapons’, Miss Flutter says.”

I nodded. “Alright, so if they have lasers we’ll have the advantage with our own weapons due to Energy Ward,” I tapped my gun at my side. “And if they have traditional weapons, the range will still be useful.”

Boom gave a slight frown. “Uh, captain. Shouldn’t we be cautious because they’re stronger than us?”

“That’s why we’re setting an ambush. Also, everyone in this world is ‘stronger’ than you, but we’ve won the first few skirmishes just fine.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Just what I said. What level are you now… 11, 12?”

“11,” he confirmed. “It went up after the last battle.”

“Yeah,” I said. “So about that. Any random adult should end up at 20 or more. Trained warriors are likely higher.”

“A serious disadvantage,” Lyklor replied. “But you have the confidence to be assured of your victory. Interesting.”

“I could always be wrong,” I admitted. “But we’re well equipped. And we know more about our enemy than they do about us. If battles were just about comparing levels, why would anyone have wars?”

Lyklor nodded. “Your previous victories are a testament. Still, be cautious.”

“If I sense the enemy is too strong, I’ll call off the ambush,” I said. Our current comms were meant to work without infrastructure support. They were short range, but it should be totally fine. “I think we should open with gunfire, rather than magic. In case they have anyone who can sense magic. Though try to start using what you have immediately as we begin. We can’t afford to conserve too much.”

That also applied to me. Though I did have to think about what the best spells would be. Was a powerful spell like Chain Lightning better, or would they be anticipating something like that?

Well, they couldn’t maintain every sort of Energy Ward on a full group- I don’t think anyone could- so we’d always have options. I wasn’t sure how much we could rely on Lyklor in combat, but the rest of us together should just about match the incoming group.

-----

We prepared as many lasting buffs as we could before the enemy approached. Mostly defensive things like Energy Ward, tuned for lasers. We hoped they would rely on their new weaponry instead of making optimal use of their class abilities, though we were prepared to adapt in case this group was different.

As we had hoped, they ignored the two random bats up high on the ceiling. Flower and Miss Flutter were quite separated, and while it was probably a bit odd to have a single regular bat, Flower was also much less obvious.

The group actually happened to be just seven people. Hopefully, Zeb’s companions would learn to count- but what were we going to say about Miss Flutter? She was literally new today. She did a fine enough job scouting… and at least we hadn’t interpreted things more favorably.

I had a particular point in mind for the ambush, but Iron Hawk jumped the gun slightly. She also didn’t make use of her sidearm, instead swinging her staff for center of mass. I had thought her recent experience might make her hesitate, but instead she overcompensated. Her chosen target didn’t even think to dodge as she slammed her staff into the man’s chest, sweeping out from behind a stalagmite.

The man went flying back, and there was a single moment as everyone sprang into action. Our side was slightly faster even though we were thrown off.

My regular old projectile gun was out- I could use it at the same time as magic, which was quite convenient. My target was some sort of mage, who happened to have proper magical defenses. I didn’t see anything like Stoneskin, but she had a proper Force Armor to absorb attacks. And it did. At least, the first couple.

While a good bow and a simple pistol were pretty similar in the impact on Force Armor- and yes, we’d tested- I could simply pull the trigger again and again. It was like a high level Rapid Shot skill, but… just normal.

The mage still threw herself behind cover before I could bring her down, but while I was taking those shots I also gathered mana. This wasn’t a time to be conserving mana, so I blasted the whole area with Blizzard. It wasn’t as quick as I would have liked, but I still managed to hit about half of our foes, the magic partially spreading around cover. If our timing had been better I might have been able to completely disable a good portion of the group, but I could only gather mana so fast.

I followed up with much less costly magic, shooting four balls of light at various enemies, just trying to make the light stick to anyone or anything- enemies or the stone next to them. Then I shot four more. Which was weird, because it looked like five.

After that, the true battle began, with dark elves having either focused on picking a target or running for cover- though the former were not doing so great. Some of these guys were fast, but fortunately they focused on their lasers for the first volley. They no doubt realized their weapons weren’t as effective as they wanted, but by that point they had wasted precious moments while they were being peppered by bullets- and then there were the shrieks of bats. Unsurprisingly, Miss Flutter was louder given her approximately one hundred times difference in size between her and Flower.