Holowin special - Act V - A Thinner Veil – Started!
"En garde!" Those two words seemed to echo through the room a few times, adding to the eerie feeling of the mysterious chamber in which Xiangling, Lisa, Eula and Chongyun entered a moment prior. They looked around themselves when multiple orange-redish flames suddenly erupted from torches hung at the wall as well as from pumpkin-carved chandeliers floating a few meters above their heads. Despite being small in comparison to the vast chamber, those lights successfully lit up the whole place, allowing the adventuring party to get a clear image of their environment. They were in a more or less rectangular room that had a short corridor leading to the room from which they came. The floor, from their first observations, seemed to be surprisingly well maintained and of good quality, with what seemed like a few trap doors here and there. The walls were elegantly decorated with red, orange, and gold in which a few symbols could be observed, more or less reminiscent of the symbols previously observed on the ghoulish creatures' robes.
Despite all the elegance and refinement shown in said decorations, what caught the investigation party's attention was an unusual being standing in front of them near the other end of the room. Said being had skin looking in a rather bad shape and of not exactly healthy colors that was moving slowly towards them. It was wearing a long dark orange cape almost touching the ground... where its feet could not be observed. Furthermore, no wire or rope of any kind could be detected in its surroundings, indicating it was actually levitating. Suddenly, the hostile creature casted a dark energy ball and hurled it towards Xiangling who dodged it by pure reflex, not expecting to be targeted in that manner. Things were now clear and obvious : the disembodied voice was coming from the lich-like being standing in front of them. That being, standing tall and proud in the back of the room, was clearly preparing something and that something was not a good omen. As if to add to the supernatural and eerie atmosphere that was now filling the entire room, Hu Tao's words could echo in the minds of the entire party: "Remember and always keep it in mind... The veil gets thinner during this period of the year..."
Without a thought or slight moment of hesitation, Chongyun charged forward, readying an exorcism spell, and applied it to his blade before swinging violently towards the enemy. The lich moved aside a few moments before the attack even began moving in its direction and repeated the action a second then a third time in front of a very confused Chongyun who was feeling like the opponent could read his mind. A few steps further, Eula made a quick nod to Lisa and charged gracefully in the action to assist her colleague while the librarian was preparing a few surprise lightning bolts to distract their target. She let the electricity build up for a few moments before unleashing a few strikes aiming at the lich, but this one blocked the attacks with a small battle staff it was using for the fight. At the same moment, Eula let her claymore do some talking, but it only succeeded in making acquaintance with the undead fighter's robed, making sa few small cuts on the vast robes of the lich standing in front of her and mocking her in an eerie laugh. The enemy moved backwards slowly, throwing magic disks towards its opponents who dodged them with ease. However, Chongyun didn't notice that the battle staff wielded by their adversary was pointing towards him in the middle of the projectiles being fired and he was hit in the stomach by an earth spell in the shape of a bouncing pumpkin the size of a beer mug. Despite not causing real damage, the hit staggered the young man for a moment causing his allies to turn towards him for a moment as the sound of his claymore hitting the ground came as a surprise. The young exorcist picked up his weapon quickly, reassuring his colleagues as to his well-being, but still accidentally ignored the opponent by doing so. Lisa, too far behind, tried to distract the enemy with a new lightning bolt, but could barely hit her target as she didn't ready attack and tried to cast too fast. Without any surprise, the lich shrugged the attack off with a laugh and focused on its targets again.
A second rock projectile was fired towards Chongyun who managed to dodge it merely by a few centimeters before seeing the undead fighter enjoying the unexpected trouble he was giving him. To palliate the sudden opening in her partner's defense, Eula placed herself in front of him and placed her heavy blade in front of her to try to deflect the next attack coming their way. She unfortunately realized it was not exactly the best idea when she saw a glowing light in the eyes of the lich staring at her with an eerie and horrific energy in its eyes. He let a bright orange beam escape from its staff, which unexpectedly missed its target widely before ending its path on the wall behind Lisa who was a few steps to the left compared to the initial targets. Visibly not expecting that, and more importantly feeling itself catching fire, the lich turned around quickly and saw Guoba standing there jumping and waving at him and letting out a loud and clear : "bwlabwlabweeee~" before breathing a bit more fire on its robes that caught fire for good. Quickly getting out of range of an opportunity attack by the undead being, the former god retreated further inside the room making his usual funny noises as the lich started focusing on extinguishing the fire from its robes. Eula and Chongyun glanced at each other and charged the opponent quickly, successfully delivering a few direct hits on it.
After a few blows landed on it, the lich abruptly stopped moving and pushed everyone back with a shockwave that literally sent Eula and Chongyun flying a few meters back on top of Lisa. The unexpected cushion, in the name and shape of Lisa Minci, breathed heavily when she got back up, a few moments after her allies because of the weight of the impact, but nodded to her partners showing them she was fine to keep going. The opponent laughed eerily and exclaimed : "That is commendable, but it won't suffice... Prepare yourselves!" As soon as it finished taunting its adversaries, it lifted its arm in the air and the traps on the floor slowly slid open revealing differently colored pressure plates. Some of them were bright orange, some others blackish, some brown while a fourth set were a weird shape of purple emitting a faint but yet observable flashing effect. Even though she didn't see any action for some time before embarking on this unplanned expedition, Lisa didn't lose any of her faithful observation habits as she quickly spotted a small gem that just appeared on the forehead of the undead elite enemy. She pointed it out to her allies as she saw Eula tripping on a pumpkin-shaped slime that rushed in her legs. Luckily, she got up fast enough to avoid being hit by a few rock projectiles sent her way by the enemy. She then turned towards the slime and splatted it against the floor with all her might, claiming vengeance for real this time against the enemy that made her trip. While Eula was busy demolishing said slime, Chongyun moved closer to her and used his elemental skill on the floor, creating his world-renowned-never-lasting ice ring. As soon as that ice field appeared, three human-shaped slime who were created just a moment ago slipped, fell face first onto the newly created ice, and slid into the wall where they splatted and were thus defeated.
Suddenly, the gem in the undead enemy's head became orange as did the eyes of the floating pumpkin chandeliers near the ceiling. The adventuring team rushed to the orange plates, much to the displeasure of their aggressive host who didn't even get the chance to take advantage of the situation. The bright shield that was barely starting to form cracked right away, giving a short window of opportunity for the adventurers to deal some damage.
After a few cycles during which the required color changed randomly, the undead opponent suddenly summoned what seemed to be like more or less sixty pumpkin-shaped slimes that all turned towards the three fighters actively opposing their master. A bit unexpected even to herself, Lisa summoned her powerful lightning rose in the middle of the room, adding a bright purple lighting effect to the already horror-themed situation. Sudden violent lightning strikes split the air and dispatched a few of the slimes with a single hit, immediately cheering up the battle party who saw a window of opportunity to prevent their enemy from taking the upper hand. Lisa, in the middle of all the action, let out one of her famous lines that made Eula laugh despite herself : "And you know I hate pumpkins..." Despite being tired from the challenges they faced on their way to their current opponent, they had the firm resolve needed to see things through and succeed in their expedition. They got into position and prepared their next attack. At that same moment, they heard Xiangling shouting loud and clear from behind the lich summoner : "Guoba, get them!" Remembering more than well the bad surprise it had not long before, the enemy quickly turned around to avoid being surprised once more by the fallen god in the shape of an orange panda, but didn't see it anywhere. Instead, he saw a young cook from Liyue proudly holding a handful of jueyun chili peppers and widely smiling despite being covered in multicolored slime goo. Said peppers then flew in the air a short moment before entering directly into Guoba's mouth who ate them in one go. Guoba's eye suddenly lit up like a volcano erupting as the weakened god bursted a few intense flames towards Xiangling who used them to imbue her spear with the powerful fire energy and then throwing her weapons towards the lich enemy who was unfortunate enough to face the legendary-Xiangling-Guoba-god-like pyronado first hand.
As soon as she noticed the lich summoner was focusing its attention towards Xiangling and her flying blade, Eula unleashed her elemental burst, causing a painful melt reaction on the enemy. She relentlessly continued her attack with some powerful yet graceful clayrmore swings that hit the half defenseless opponent who seemed to feel the pain of the attacks despite its undead state. Chongyun joined in the fun, painfully stabbing the undead enemy with his famous pointy ice shards burst attack while Lisa remained as support sending a few lightning attacks, with that combined attack ultimately culminating into Eula's icy burst explosion that staggered the lich for a few seconds. The enemy suddenly unleashed another shockwave that knocked the adventuring party backwards once more. The disembodied voice from the undead opponent echoed again in the room...
Holowin special - Act V - A Thinner Veil – Completed!
To be continued...