Ash and his ladies had already had quite enough of being intercepted by teams who hated them, so he quickly threw up all three of the Sorcerer set cards, along with Replenishing Aura, before readying Not A Fighter for the Warlock.

He had one chance at this, and it was to close the distance between himself and the Cleric, take him down, and deal with the Warlock while hoping like hell Rachel could stop Kirith from doing whatever she was about to do.

And once again, he had to hope that Lucy and Jezebel would actually contribute, while knowing they wouldn’t. Tinniel he reckoned wasn’t going to make it out of this fight without losing her life, using her single Full Revive, and respawning back at Beaver or Bevandria or whatever. It didn’t matter much. She might get off an arrow but it wasn’t likely to do much of anything, especially against any of these Journeyman adventurers.

He took a deep breath, wondering why they hadn’t begun attacking, and also had a moment to wonder about the missing dwarf, when Kirith spoke.

“You have to call her off,” she said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

“You put her up to this, and for that, we’re going to put you in the ground.”

“If you tell me what I’ve put her up to, I can deny something specific,” he said.

She pointed a a sword at his chest, or rather, a sword hilt and pommel, and a blade made of bluish fire exploded into being. “You set Ariella after us,” she announced.

“I didn’t,” he said.

“You’re lying.”

“Do you have some kind of lie tracing ability?” he asked, “Because I will submit to a lie detector test right here and now.”

Already the other three were scanning the darker corners of the swamp, or the horizon, or both.

“Swear to me,” she said. “Swear on the spectral sword of ancestors bestowed upon me by the sun goddess that you neither put this idea in her head, nor gave her ideas on how to carry out this vile deed.”

“I swear it,” he said, and was surprised for one of the first times in this new life, when she outdid him in Quick. She had the tip of the blue fire blade in his chest before he could react, which dealt only a single damage.

It didn’t matter.

Kirith went flying back, fire exploding out of her, from the Boiling Blood damage. She did not manage to land on another portion of land, but instead slammed into brackish water and disappeared.

The moment this happened, he screamed out for the Warlock to do nothing, and held his hands out in the classic stopping motion. True to the name, Not a Fighter engaged and closed its paralytic effect over the Warlock, who probably would’ve thrown an exploding fire spell at them. Kirith came spluttering to the surface a moment later, and stood in waters that came only up to her chest.

“What in the hell was that?” he demanded.

“It was the vow of the sun ability! What the hell did you do to me?”

“Retributive damage from a Sorcerer aura. How the hell was I supposed to know you were just going to cut me to find the truth? You gotta warn a guy before pulling shit like that.”

Kirith held out her hands in a warding gesture, just as Ash had a second later. Everybody stood down, thank the gods. He still had plenty of time on his auras, and still had Tsunami ready. With plenty of water in the area, it would deal a lot more damage to a much bigger area.

“The goddess has spoken; I have seen the Bard’s mind. He isn’t lying,” she announced. “He didn’t encourage Ariella to do anything. They are not in cahoots.”

“Ya hear that, boys?” he called, “We are not in cahoots.”

The drow at least, and the Warlock, snarled at him, while the orren simply stared on impassively.

“So… you can all go now, then,” he said.

“We’re still not even,” she said.

“Oh we are more than even.”

He hoped, desperately, that she would counter with ‘are not’ so he could counter with ‘are too’ and they could then go back and forth like child siblings fighting in the dumbest way possible.

Sadly, it didn’t go that way.

“You seduced my friend, and I was forced…” she trailed off, realizing perhaps that she was about to admit to watching Ash and her lizardfolk friend get freaky.

“Forced…” he said. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Never mind!” she snapped. “We are leaving.”

“You don’t want to tell your friends what you were forced to do?”

She glared at him, and he could see the wheels of calculations turning in her mind. Yes, they outmatched him, especially considering Tinniel wasn’t yet Amateur as a Ranger. The two NPC Druids, however, brought her up short. Also, none of them had a Familiar, while Ash already had one. Waffles had his ears pricked up and was glancing between the orren and the angelus.

How many more would they lose as a resut of attacking Ash and his people? There was one way to find out, and that was to actually lose people.

“How many Full Revives do you have left?” he asked, his tone icy and quiet. Maybe the others couldn’t hear; he didn’t much care. Kirith had already incensed him once, and now she was back and trying to act like she had a leg to stand on.

She got the hint. “We are leaving.”

They weren’t.

It was at this moment that a bog monster chose to rise from the depths and snap up the half-elf Warlock. Staves (Quick) gave him the ability the creature had used: Quick Strike. Just like that the Warlock was just an arm sticking out of a mouth the size of a cave entrance.

“What the hell?” Kirith shouted, but Ash could only chuckle. Surely this wasn’t the first Random Encounter she’d ever gone up against. Surely not.

He didn’t hesitate, but instead called on Tinniel to fire while Rachel did her usual competent thing. As for him, he ordered Waffles to keep an eye on Kirith’s team. If any of them tried attacking his people, Waffles would unleash a sorcerous fury the likes of which they could not comprehend.

Ash darted forward and threw Tsunami at the beast. The knockdown may have failed, but it did a ridiculous amount of damage based on the available water and his Sorcerer’s Blood working in concert. Its health dropped by almost half, but then began to visibly tick back up when the health bar pulsed with light and sent some energy up toward the end.

Several arrows flew overhead and stuck in the beast’s goopy hide, but didn’t even slow its regeneration. Staves told him it had put on Improved Regneration, a double rare card.

“Keep at it, Tinniel!” he called, and darted to the side to get a fireball off.

This one exploded just as Kirith got there, causing her to veer aside rather than take fire damage in the face. She glared at him, but there was nothing for it. The beast had used Quick Surge, then Chomp. The Warlock’s hand fell out of the beast’s mouth and landed with a wet plop in the swamp water, only to have a number of smaller things leap out of the water after it.

“Ash,” Rachel said, suddenly beside him. “We can just go.”

This earned him another sharp look from Kirith, who had just carved a groove in the monster’s side and been swatted away by one of its many segmented legs.

“Come on, let these assholes get eaten, or save their buddy from the belly of the beast. They have a Cleric, they can just revive him or whatever.”

The monster was rapidly regaining its health and damaging both the orren and Kirith without much difficulty. If they had had their dwarf Knight, this wouldn’t have been much of an issue. If the Warlock hadn’t been eaten, it probably would’ve been much easier. But they didn’t have any of those things, and Ash wasn’t going to be a dick right now. There were xp and rewards to get. On top of that, they could have a favor from Kirith’s submissive little bitches, and having someone owe you a favor was never a bad idea.

“You can sit this one out if you want,” he said, and dashed forward. Arcane Lance hit the thing in its face right before it opened its maw to swallow Kirith whole, and knocked its head back just enough that she was able to dodge out of the way and stab it through one gigantic eye.

A bellow shook the whole area, and he watched in amusement while the angelus was lifted off her feet and high into the air, still clutching to her spectral sword. Ash didn’t waste time, but instead used Heavy Metal to turn his lute into a weapon of war, then went to town over and over again to give his MP a rest.

This time when the creature came back down toward him, he grabbed onto the orren with Improved telekinesis and ripped the rock man off his feet, then dodged out of the way just in time to have the huge, boulder crammed into the creature’s mouth.

The orren was, understandably, pissed off. It was also classed as a Mauler, meaning it only dealt damage at extremely short range. The upside was it being a shit ton of damage. Ash had seen the gem shards forming at its knuckles, razor-like

It went to town on the inside of the beast’s mouth, breaking off teeth and punching up into its soft palate, while above it Kirith’s weight was carving a huge groove in its head. All the while, the drow kept the heals coming, clearly okay with his role in the party.

Now that all was going well, he took the first of several claw swipes, which sent him into the water once, then twice, and did retributive damage from Boiling Blood. At the same time, Dragon’s Blood filled his action deck with copies of Dragonscale and Fireball, which he used several times in quick succession on the creature’s trunk.

With the combination of the impossible-to-swallow orren, the spectral sword carving the thing’s head in half, and the peppering of arrows from Tinniel, Ash managed to outpace its regeneration with his Fireballs, and finally bring its HP bar down to zero.

 

Congratulations! You have defeated Bog Maw.

 

Ash was on the fence about picking up some of the reward cards, helping to revive and heal the injured team, or just leave, but fate had other ideas. The problems weren’t over with the death of the Bog Maw.

They only changed. When it died, hundreds of smaller worms appeared out of its mouth and wounds. He immediately used Dragonscale and ordered Tinniel to keep fighting, trusting that Rachel would choose whatever was best. Then he started using spell after spell, interspersed with his new Echoing Encore, which gave him a second shot at any card already in the discard pile. All he had to do was sing a little ditty, or compose a little poetry. It was kind of wild to watch the orren Mauler knee deep in biting creatures, shoulder to shoulder with Kirith fighting off any that weren’t pulled by his aggro abilities, and getting heals from the drow Cleric… all while singing at the top of his lungs. And fun.

He got several odd looks from Kirith and didn’t care all that much. Honestly, fuck her. He was only doing this because Tinniel would probably jump two or three levels at least, and Rachel would almost certainly level as well.

The fighting went on for nearly an hour, with the rock monster getting heals from the Cleric, and eventually Lucifer and Jezebel. They could mend stone, and did so at a critical juncture.

Finally, the Warlock was brought out of the monster, dead for just about an hour, and put before the drow Cleric. A ritual then began, while he and Kirith eyed one another from across the dead body.

“I should think that my people are taking anything we want,” he said.

“It’s like that, is it?”

“You’re goddamn right it is,” he said. “You nearly cried rape and had me threatened with death if I didn’t—”

She threw up her hands. “Fine!”

They collected a Ranger card too advanced for Tinniel to handle right now, while she ended up with Exploit Weakness: Wyrm, with a second mark on Exploit Weakness: Beast. She also went from Beginner level 3 to Amateur level 3 in no time at all. She had successfully killed something like twenty Bog Maw Grubs, and even those were above her level.

He also got a Rogue ability called Shade Vessel, but until she became a Shadow Dancer, a specific type of Rogue, she would only get a Sly bonus and the ability to disappear into shadows. If she did become a Shadow Dancer, the card would allow her to detach her shadow for purposes of scouting. Once per day she could just disappear into another shadow and appear wherever the vessel was currently hiding out. Although this seemed great to Ash, Rachel wasn’t really keen on becoming a skulker in darkness, with evil-ish powers. While he didn’t like it, he could respect that.

It wasn’t until she explained that there were other Rogue subclasses that he understood. There was one called an Arcane Dagger she liked, a blend of Sorcerer and Rogue, another one called Tomb Raider, and Assassin. Shadow Dancer wasn’t on that list, which was odd.

“It sounds like Shadow Dancer is more specialized?” he offered. “Aren’t the more specialized classes potentially more powerful?”

She nodded. “And more restrictive. Some of these cards I won’t be able to use at all.”

“Got it.”

“And there are classes I’ve never heard of that keep popping up. That Spectral Sword girl… I’d never heard of that. There have to be dozens I haven’t encountered, so I don’t want to tie myself down until I know.”

“You can just dump your action deck and rebuild it,” he said, and immediately regretted. She didn’t have the boon he did, to restructure her deck at the drop of a hat, every day, whenever he got another card.

She gave him a look, and he smiled apologetically. “I really need, like really really, a card like your harem one, where I can get experience from non-combat actions. I have a very basic one, but it’s only providing xp for sneaking around. I haven’t been able to find a copy of it, and it’s just uncommon.”

“Got it.”

He then took her through the skill-based boon he’d gotten, and she frowned again. “All of them at Journeyman level 1? How did you manage that so fast? Don’t tell me, the sex card.”

He smiled again sheepishly. “Yup.”

“It’s fine,” she said, “I’m not jealous at all. I mean obviously I’m jealous because you get xp from just doing… it. But not very jealous… you’re on my team, and that means we have all these skills at really high levels, as a team.”

“All you have to do is keep me on your side,” he said, lightly.

Rachel just nodded and feigned super seriousness. “With lots of blowjobs and all your favorite positions.”

“Eww!” Tinniel complained. “Do you two ever stop?”

Rachel appeared to ponder this for a moment. “Actually no, we do not.”