"The monsters will continue to gain strength and then only Tara and Ash will be able to fight them," Audrey explained. "At that point the best the rest of us will be able to do is distract them until they can come fight it. Also this is probably leading to boss level monsters toward the end which might kill us accidentally while fighting Ash."
Cory, Bethany, and Stevens were looking at the ground by the time she was done explaining. They each had something to prove to themselves or to another person in the group and didn't want to be left out. Cory wanted to gain the confidence to be someone that women wanted, Bethany wanted to catch Eli's eye, at least as someone useful, but more so as a potential servant. Stevens just didn't want to be left behind, he knew he wouldn't do well on his own and society was too chaotic for him to spend the time needed to find a trustworthy team. It honestly hurt him to see the way Tara looked at Eli, but he would happily suffer that for a better chance at survival. In time, he would find someone that looked at him like that, he just had to stay positive, and stay alive.
"We can cross that bridge when we come to it," Tara said, trying to be reassuring. "For now let's be grateful that we are doing well together and use this to learn and become better. This is a great training opportunity."
Instead of resting, they went over combat tips with each other again. Stevens gave advice on magic use from things he has learned being a caster. How to mix magic types from different open nodes into a spell that doesn't call for them, and how to manage magic efficiently while continuing to use it. Tara explained some things she learned from her weapon skill that was called multifarious axes. It gave her an innate feeling of how to move the axe she wasn't attacking with to help line it up for an attack. It also gave her a feeling of when she could throw an axe and grab a new one out of her inventory. Turns out she had spent over half her credits on axes for her inventory so she could get used to this, when it hit level three it made the axes she threw return to inventory after twenty seconds or so.
Eli, again, took some time with Bethany to talk about balance and flexibility, but this time Tara did not discourage her when she asked for the help from him. She knew Bethany was actually learning despite enjoying him touching her body far more than she would like. Tara decided that until this event was over, she would let her and Audrey continue with their crushes, she would talk to them afterwards to make sure they knew that he belonged to her. The last 5 minutes or so they all just sat and calmed their minds, getting mentally ready for the next wave to start.
With three down, the next three went about the same as the third one did. With few injuries and good tactics, they were noticing that they ended each wave with less and less magic. Audrey was also struggling with gauging the strength of these stronger monsters and was making mistakes when it came to formation changes. However since there were fewer of them, they were able to cover each other quickly and prevent any serious issues or injuries. Audrey was both nervous and excited about having this group of people trust her so much. Always being the youngest in a group at school, her friends never trusted her or gave her any responsibility of her own.
The seventh wave saw Stevens get badly hurt by a fuzzy scorpion monster with a monkey face when it shot a barb out of its tail and hit him in the stomach. The poison would have killed him but Eli used his light's purity spell to help cleanse it and his avatar to carry him so he moved with the group. Twice he thought he was going to die from the poison and was yelling out to Tara that he loved her, everyone just laughed it off though which was probably for the best. They were all exhausted after this one, with the exception of Eli, they were all lying on the ground breathing heavily, low on magic and vitality.
"Head back to the safe zone, Tara Audrey and myself will do the next one while you rest, if it isn't much harder you can come back for one more. After that I'm doing the last three alone," Eli said, trying to make it sound like it wasn't a big deal.
"You want me to stay?" Audrey asked with a bit of fear in her voice.
"I will keep you safe, when monsters get this strong it helps to have a feel for their magic to get a heads up on any tricks they might have. You and I are the only ones who can sense magic and I have trouble with it when fights get intense, it takes too much focus away from fighting," Eli said to her with some positivity in his voice.
She looked at Tara, then back to Eli, then back to Tara who nodded this time.
"Ok, I'll trust you to keep me safe," Audrey said.
This had been Tara's plan to get the girl to feel more connected to them. She was very smart and could think on her feet under pressure, and she wanted to keep the girl in the group. Eli felt bad about it, but agreed that when this event was over she was smart enough to think of a way to kill him, having seen him during so many fights. Tara also said that she would be very useful and that she could use the confidence boost, put all that together and Eli caved and agreed to the plan.
The others started walking back to the safe zone, they had said that they would take care of any monster that made it past them, but they looked pretty worn out. After they left, the three of them worked on how they were going to work it so Audrey could help but be in as little danger as possible. The main thing is Eli wanted her to get a better grip on her magic senses while helping Tara know what she was dealing with. However, keeping her safe was going to be the tricky part, but he was confident that he could do it.
They started the next wave out with Eli and Tara on top of the edge of one of his craters from when he destroyed this area and Audrey down in the crater a bit, out of sight from the approaching monsters. The monsters were really getting bigger and stronger, but with fewer, it was still manageable for this wave. Everything started out fine but after about five minutes of fighting, one of the monsters tunneled down to try and appear behind them. Eli sensed this and jumped up into the air, he came crashing down on the spot where it was underground and hit with an over-magiced smash.
The ground seemed to crush it still, it wasn't dead but it was not moving, so he went back to fighting. He got back to it just in time to stop a monster from getting to Audrey by grabbing its back leg and swinging it back into the forest towards the south. She smiled and nodded to him, then went back to giving instructions to Tara. After ten minutes or so they seemed to have gained a rhythm and the wave was finished off without further incident. It felt like a collective sigh was let out when the three of them had come out of that wave uninjured.
Just as Tara and Eli were walking back to Audrey to discuss the fighting, the monster that had been underground, a beetle looking thing with clawed mandibles, popped up and bit down on Audrey's stomach. Its mandibles pierced her from both sides, going in deep. Eli used lights to boost, blink, and smash all at once and the monster disintegrated, leaving only its head that was still attached to Audrey. Tara rushed over and pulled the pinchers out of her, she collapsed to the ground but Eli caught her and held her. Tara was in a panic, but Eli could sense her magic and knew she would be ok, so he took off his mask and held her head up gently.
Eli closed his eyes and felt her magic, her vitality was going to work healing her body but it was going to be a close thing. He placed one hand on her forehead and the other on her heart, and focused his life magic out of his node and into her. He wasn't sure how it was going to work so he started slow, but then her magic became stronger and her vitality roared into action. It left Eli feeling weak but she was doing much better. In only a few minutes she opened her eyes and was able to talk. She noticed him covered in sweat and looking pale, then she saw Tara with a worried look on her face and thought she was dying.
Then she looked inward and was shocked to see how strong her magic was, but it wasn't her magic, it was his. It was life magic, so much that it was changing her soul and her magic, it felt like a warm fire and the rest of the world was the cold that it was warming against. Audrey didn't even know it was possible to feel so safe and at home. She held onto that magic as tight as she could as it overcharged her vitality and healing, he had done far more than was needed to save her life. He truly did care for her, they both did, maybe these people won't be so bad to stay around, she thought.
"Are you ok?" Tara asked with some panic in her voice.
"She will be fine, luckily, she trusts me enough to let my magic enter her heart node. I pulled it right out of my life node, I was worried it would be too strong so I only used a small amount," Eli said
"A small amount?!" Audrey yelled, and then started coughing. "I thought my magic was going to self-destruct there was so much."
"Be gentle with her," Tara said, as she playfully slapped him on the shoulder.
"It's alright, she is ok, I think I accidentally leveled her soul though," Eli said while examining her with magic sense.
"You did what?" they said at the same time.
"I said it was an accident, besides, it's beneficial," Eli said defensively.
The two women looked at each other and laughed at Eli. This was a familiar feeling for him, not knowing what women were thinking, so he just sighed, set Audrey down, and walked away. He wasn't going to let them tease him, he needed to sharpen himself, less emotions, more reason and practical thoughts. He sat down within earshot of them in case there was trouble and began some focused meditation, he was attempting to gain control over his magic. This was a control he felt he used to have but with emotions driving him to chaos, he felt his control slipping.
"So, what did it feel like?" Tara asked Audrey, trying to gauge how profound an experience this had been for her.
"Almost dying? Or what Ash did?" Audrey asked while still having a bit of a shocked look on her face.
"Both."
"Well the dying part felt cold and isolating, like I was alone frozen in a lake. Then his magic felt like a warm fire, a kind of warmth that made the rest of the world feel cold." Audrey explained, she had a frustrated look on her face like her words weren't doing it justice.
"And how do you feel now?"
"I feel like I can trust him, and you."
"I mean the warm feeling."
"I'm not sure, I need to get my head around what happened," Audrey said and went into deep thought.
Tara left her alone and walked over Eli who was struggling with his own issues. But she interrupted him so they could talk.
"You need to keep your distance from her for a few days. Don't be rude or mean to her but, she is very confused and scared. She is getting her feelings mixed up in her need to feel safe and that could end badly."
"I was thinking that after this event is over we should head to where I had been hunting. Those four will take days to get there, and we should discreetly follow them, but keep to ourselves. It can be a nice honeymoon and you can help me get control while we work on fighting together better. Then we join them when we get there and work on team tactics and strategy on some seriously strong monsters," Eli explained.
"As long as we make it back up here for the next event, I think that is a good plan." She agreed with him.
"Can you walk her back to the others, I need to get myself right for this next wave. It will just be me and you and I'll need focus."
Tara nodded and went back to Audrey and walked her back to the others, who were waiting just inside where the now useless barrier was. Immediately they noticed something off about Audrey and she told them a condensed version of the story leaving out just how Eli had saved her using his magic. They all were grateful that she survived and told her that they would keep watch while she rested. Stevens reported to Tara that they had seen four monsters running toward towns but were only able to divert one of them and kill it themselves. He also said that they were ready to do it again this wave.