Last Minute Benefits Pt2

Once they were at the bottom, though, I did not hold back and immediately ignited the surface of the divine sheeting with base Soulfire.

This was the Soulfire I developed from my own soul without the inclusion of the Assimilated Soulfire from the original Trollbone. The damage from this, though, was enough to steadily whittle away the health of the players trapped inside. When I saw their health falling at dangerous speeds of six and seven percent per second, I had to draw on even more of Zekrom's mana to throw out a secondary healing rain of Soulfire.

Using Zekrom's mana instead of my own not only could I conduct a second line of magic but also sustain the damaging Soulfire at the same time as somebody else' friendly healing Soulfire. If I had used the same mana through myself or my own mana, both Soulfire spells would becoming healing and there would be no damage to develop resistances to.

Under the effects of this misting of Soulfire pouring out of an area in front of Zekrom, the players began healing at rates just over the damage they were taking. They had already fallen below half by the time the second Soulfire came into play but they slowly began climbing back up.

As if strengthened by the healing Soulfire, it was not long after they reached full health that they started resisting the Soulfire. At first it was their cries lowering to groans and then to grunting as they fought to push themselves off of the floor. After thirty seconds under both Soulfire spells, the unlucky players enveloped in fire on all side slowly started standing up.

The blunt force damage from my own Demigod empowered Soulfire was steadily eating away their armor into darkened and thinned crisps of bone and leather. The only things to maintain proper shape and form with its natural resistances were the underarmor we had sold, dozens of suits of silk standards.

The flames performed physical damage so the treated and enchanted gigantula silk- from my own group's crafting- never actually dried out despite tanning from a light grayish off-white to an almost ashen dark gray color.

After the first person got to their feet, they actually threw their arms up and let loose a sound that was more confusing than anything else. It was some parts a cheer and other parts a cry of agony with underlying hints of rage and fury. Once this 'roar' finished, the man turned his attention to his closest companion and hauled them up to their feet.

He did not even stop to share their moment of freedom as they struggled to find their footing while outright crying. This first to rise simply turned to the third and started pulling them up. The shrunken and tattered outer armor of demon hides and plates fell away under his brute force, rendering everybody else nearly nude in their graying underarmor.

However, he refused to stop and was the first to take a proper step under the pressure of the thinly super condensed mana under them. The person they first pulled up had wobbled about in place and taken a few steps, but those clearly could not count. The first guy actually placed one foot in front of the other and staggered on to somebody else in line.

Once the second guy on their feet had finally found his feet, he needed no prompting and continued the first's holy mission of dragging their comrades to their feet and out of this hell. If not for the fact that I was in control of both the hellfire underneath and the Soulfire above, I would have been more emotionally stirred by their efforts and strides.

As it was, I only felt a simplified sense of pride that my allies were growing physically and mentally more powerful than ever before.

Once everybody was on their feet and together, the third person I remembered being picked up in the beginning hastily made the first person to hop around and out of the middle of the pond. The others all wobbled and limped about, continuously raising this or that part of their body more out of the fire below and into the healing rain above to keep their feet 'fresh'.

She took no more than three steps out from the center before being swept off of her feet by the innumerable paper thin layers of alternating currents making up the condensed divine sheeting. No sooner had they fallen than the first guy was bolting forward to catch them. This guy had to have an exceptional mind to endure the pain, modulate the physical damage, track everybody's circumstances, plan ahead, actually react to the changing circumstances, and maintain control of the situation.

I had no idea which clan this guy came from, but I was actually considering poaching the dude as a PVP captain or something. At his level alone he could carry and condition large parties of lower leveled players around Winter Wood. Now, though, he had stopped the fallen player from sliding right into the others who were still just barely steady.

Only the two of them went down in those few moments and before long they were both back on their feet thanks to the lady who had been stopped. As soon as they were up the man was taking off his upper underarmor and calling out unintelligibly to the others. However, all the men in the group naturally needed no other prompting than that.

Some of the women in the group even started taking their tops off to supplement the armor rope swiftly being crafted. As soon as I saw this taking place, I felt so guilt and ashamed of myself that within a tenth of a second I was already reaching out to Orion for his MP.

Before anything was visible within the already blinding white fire, there was a second conduit of mana running from Orion to Zekrom and fueling a second Soulfire that selectively targeted the women with a dense coating of 'light screen'. By the end of that second, I was already isolating the original healing Soulfire faucet around the men to provide the same privacy.

Each person was basically forced to waist-wear their upper armor with their sleeves tied about themselves and then to the next closest person, forming a human chain. At either end of the chain were the largest tank style players with the weakest player available taking the central position.

The tanks, which included the poaching temptation, went down on their hands and knees and lead the other players in their forced group to crawl and climb using the large rocks under the mana screen to pull themselves. The weakest player in the middle was the anchor that kept the line taught and the others in motion while literally being carried over the pond bed and then up the shortened rock walls.

Mind you, all of them were now as censored blind as we were. This large group of players enduring the hell I envisioned made their way by their already livid sense of touch alone. I was thoroughly impressed with all of them when they all stood together among the weaker white flames around the underlying rock wall left behind from our previous mining.

After gathering their wits and actually resting in the healing Soulfire that had grown stronger with its isolation, this test batch of players started climbing up the old and compacted but jaggedly broken earth under the rocks. The entire graveyard was disheveled outward from this point, it was only natural that the rocky earth making up the walls was broken all across its exposed layers.

As if by miraculous means, though, the rocks making up the bed of the pond had never been disturbed before our arrival.

Scuttling like apes freed from a zoo, everybody hauled one another up and out of the pond's steeply sloping sides where the healing Soulfire was courteously sustained as they finally escaped the hell-pond little more than three minutes after entering. Once everybody had celebrated and freed themselves, though, I was forced to remind them to put their cloths back on by threateningly tapering the output of white flames around them.

"Who's next?" I ask calmly with an unphased smile once the healing Soulfire was turned off and the damaging Soulfire went out to conserve mana. "We will now be taking groups of twenty to speed things along. Each group will be cycled through in order at least three times before being allowed to opt out. However, this treatment will only be able to take place for the next few hours so put in the effort and make sure to queue up."

Nobody made any moves to answer my call for queuing for several long seconds until my own party stepped forward. In response to their courage, Mistress and her team stepped forward a split second faster than either Donna or Little Thirteen.

"Great, Ms. Donna and Mr. Thirteen will be next in line with their elites," I say before anybody has a chance to consider the awkward situation. "I'm afraid you will probably have to organize your teams into mixed parties to keep things moving smoothly, as well. In fact, I now advise everybody to take a moment and consider their armor situation.

"Not in that you should remove your armor, a new suit would probably benefit you all based on average skill levels gained among your people," I quickly amend when my own party started to disrobe. "I meant the human chain strategy, I have a weak heart and don't thin k I can handle the nudity. Here, Go," I say quickly, pointing toward my second-in-command and spraying out some cordycep silk.

"Each team gets some rope pick your team leaders meow," I add, firing off another length of thick cordycep silk toward Donna to designate her as their team's leader. "Go, tie up and lead the way. I'll fire up the grill once you guys are all in."

Go's only response was to continue tying himself up at one end while Stonewall carried the other end to Mistress and her clan's elites. The others all found a place to twist and tie themselves into place. This might actually help to hold some of their armor together.

I had high hopes that my team could at least carry the other elites to a faster time than three minutes. The test group took more than three minutes, but they had to stop and investigate and resolve before escaping. Three minutes was now the goal since everybody was being distributed silk ropes beforehand.

Once everybody had ridden the holy mana down into the bottom of the pond, I fired up the Soulfire once again and let their health bars cook for a few moments before turning the initial single rain of healing Soulfire to help them recover. Most of everybody but the younger players in my party and a few in Mistress' were finding their way onto their feet before they even hit the bottom.

By the time their health bars had recovered to the perpetually full point, both ends of the human chain were in motion, giving the others direction for making their escape. Thirty seconds had yet to pass and these guys had already started setting the bar. Since both ends of the chain were my friends and party members I was able to take a little more pride in the occasion.

As anticipated, this prepared group of my own party and another clan's elites took only two minutes and a quarter to escape both the hell and healing Soulfire. Overall, the threat of being forced to endure as much as ten minutes of this 'training' was probably the most motivating factor involved.

However, I was now wishing I could make these guys stay in for ten minutes at a time. They were getting out too fast and the original projection of three cycles before tapping out was probably too little. If I was lucky they MIGHT spend an overall ten minutes in the hell by the end of their third cycles.

Obviously, I would simply have to up the ante in their second cycles.

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