Might of Veterans

"Did they leave again? We need to catch up tomorrow!" said the archmage gritting his teeth.

"Send the familiars to scout ahea-" Before he could finish he saw the earth around them start to shake and the air to pull them downward.

The ground moved up like sand attempting to grab them and their gryphons, the wind wouldn't let them rise as well, making them stuck in their low altitude being chased by the tentacles of sand that would shoot towards them.

A blizzard arrived as soon as they became aware of the situation, not letting them make use of the speed of their gryphons to dodge.

The mages would usually need a moment of concentration to chant and fire their spells, firing a spell on a mount was already a big challenge, but casting in the middle of this? Very difficult.

The most one of those highly trained mages could do was to make a arcane shield surrounding themselves, those that did would then be dragged to the ground by the sand tentacles, where a tauren and a panther would be waiting to kill them.

The large area of effect attacks were very draining for Theo and Selia to pull off, it had to be a decisive victory in the short period they could hold the spells.

Most mages who couldn't cast fast enough would either fall of the sky before being drowned by the sand or be slowly frozen in the air to then fall and shatter in the ground.

The magic duo had to cancel theirs spells to fight against the survivors with Trag and Mona, even if they were buffed twice by two dragons and had the terrain helping them, they still had to face a group of around ten elite mages by themselves.

The mages reacted quickly, they made an ice dome around them and prepared spells to slow down the two melee fighters.

Two mages of the survivors had already perished to those two fighters, they would first contain them and then bombard them with spells.

The ground was still unstable, making ot hard to cast spells, but compared to airborne casting it was still much easier.

They sent a pulse of frost with a combined spell, freezing the legs of Trag and Mona, but before they could actually attack with fire or arcane magic they were bombarded by two dragon breaths, the first was a jet of molten sand that cut through the ice dome like it was nothing, the second was a breath of fire which made the still existing parts of the ice dome look like a short lived oven.

It was more likely for the people inside to be burned alive then it was for the ice dome to be melted in this two seconds that it lasted.

Soon only three mages survived the onslaught of the breath.

Archmage Whitepike was horrified at how his special unit was decimated in such an ambush, they were veterans who survived the second war and who were considered elite among the magi.

He decided to let all his arcane might in a barrage of spells, he felt that they couldn't conserve mana or take them alive anymore.

He chanted a special spell of his and soon a wall of ice grew and started to move like an avalanche towards his foes, both his bodyguards also strengthened the spell by throwing in the biggest Cone of Ice they could.

Seeing the ice avalanche coming towards them, it was too high to dodge and even if they did dodge, Trag atleast would still be hit due to being stuck in place.

I stopped time to charge a large Light Shield in front of Trag, Selia came with me and let out her Arcane Shield along with mine.

The wave of ice soon crashed against us, it began to crack the shields, but we still managed to hold on.

That was a short lived relief as the next moment I felt like the ground was converging the mana around us, I knew what this was... soon we would be engulfed in a pillar of fire.

He had no time to charge a large attack, hr simply threw a Sunfire Beam into the eyes of the archmage, blinding him and distracting him long enough to where Selia threw a powerful blast of arcane energy into one of the bodyguards, bursting through his shield and throwing him back, she also managed to interrupt one of the three mages.

While the last bodyguard tried to finish the Flamestrike by himself he saw a shadow over him, it was a large horned humanoid bring thrown by a large bird!

Their casting was interrupted but they still managed to resist the attacks coming from Theo and his party.

The bodyguard who was thrown back had gotten up and spewed flames in the direction of the two dragons, while the archmage and the other bodyguard turned against the large bird and humanoid falling from the sky.

Together they conjured frozen spikes facing the sky to skewer the dropping warrior, casting then a frostbolt at the bird.

The bodyguard who tried to drown us in fire was quickly dealt with by a Frost Cone done by Selia along with my Moonfire Beam. His flames were canceled by the ice while the Moonfire Beam burned away a hole in his chest.

Trag seeing the ice spikes coming closer, cleaved the ice before him, shattering it and reaching the ground, the falling attack had failed but he just burst out at a step in a wuick charge at the body guard he targeted before.

Mona in the air tried to dodge the frostbolts, but as soon as it was approaching she turned into a hardy turtle in midair, shielding herself against most of the damage before becoming a small but very quick bird.

Mona got pissed at them for attacking her, she was going to squash the bearded pervert, so she dived at the old archmage with rage, becoming a swordfish as soon as she would impact on him.

The Archmage was incredulous seeing himself get impaled by a swordfish, 'What a horrible way to die...' were his last thoughts.

The party got some relief after getting rid of those annoying stalkers, surely the Nethergarde Keep would get weakened by their deaths but they wouldn't let them do what they wished just because it was convenient for others...

The commotion soon attracted many demons to their location, even one or two doomguards came their way... these were way more troublesome then the mages and would take a party of them to deal with one.

They quickly left after looting the bodies, they were still after Daio afterall and not in a extermination of demons.