Arcane Arctic 5: A Harem LitRPG Dungeon Crawl Adventure, page 23
"That's a psychic attack!" Jay shouted.
Around him, he could see other casters struggling with similar disorientation—healing magic being directed at the Hexchorus, attack spells aimed at their own teammates before being desperately redirected.
"Wait for your mind to clear before casting!"
"Focus on your training," Dahlia's voice cut through the confusion like a blade. Her own magic seemed less affected, shadows still responding to her will despite the chaotic energies. "Trust your muscle memory, not your perceptions. The feeling will pass."
Through the disorientation, Jay saw Dahlia's gaze searching for him, her relief visible when she spotted him still standing. Even while commanding thirty soldiers in a life-or-death battle, part of her attention remained focused on his safety.
He wondered if he should be flattered or insulted that she was so worried about him. But considering that his worry for his team never seemed to dull, no matter how strong they got, he decided to go with ‘flattered.’ Beneath her tough exterior, Dahlia was the most loving and motherly of his girls—well, maybe tied with Aurora—so she couldn’t help it.
His vision still swirled.
Jay stopped trying to think his way through the disorientation, instead focusing on his breathing. He gripped his [Scorpion Blade] and wondered at what point he should leap into battle. He didn't like to interfere. And Dahlia was doing a great job so far.
But he'd also never been targeted by the Boss monster when he was observing the other teams fight, which made staying neutral a little easier.
He didn't have a lot of magic attacks that he was familiar with, other than crowd control debuffs for fighting large groups of monsters. He did have access to pretty much every basic spell the dungeon offered through his Asset Management skill, but a Boss battle was hardly the place to practice untested spells.
Gradually, the effects began to fade, colors returning to their proper relationships and spatial orientation reasserting itself. Jay moved closer to the creature, putting himself in range to make a melee attack if need be.
The Hexchorus had used the confusion to reposition itself, floating closer to the clustered casters. New skulls had emerged from its core, these ones glowing with colors Jay didn't recognize—deep purples that seemed to bend light around them, shifting greens that made his eyes water to look at directly.
"Dahlia," he warned, moving to a position where he could intercept any attacks aimed at her. "It's adapting to our tactics. Are you ready?"
The look she gave him was pure, vulnerable affection—as if seeing him safe and close was worth more than winning the battle itself.
"Don't worry, General. We'll adapt faster.” Her ears twitched with anticipation. “This is exactly what we've been training for."
Black energy coiled around Dahlia's hands like living things. When she looked at the Hexchorus, her completely darkened eyes reflected no light at all. "Liora, can you predict its rotation pattern?"
"Working on it," the Artificer replied, her instruments recalibrating as she tracked the creature's movements. "There's a sequence, but it's getting more complex with each cycle."
Dahila split her casters into three rotating groups—one engaging, one recovering from screech effects, and one preparing to exploit openings. The battle shifted as Dahlia's tactical adaptation began to outpace the Hexchorus's learning curve.
"Kess, Ricu, coordinate burst timing," Dahlia commanded, her shadow magic weaving protective barriers around the strike team. "Liora, call the sequence."
Ricu, the conductor Jay had noticed earlier, came to stand next to the fire wielding dwarf. She began to sing as Kess formed a Fireball between her palms. The fire seemed to swell with Ricu's voice, growing much larger than the dwarf could do on her own.
"Green skull extending... now!" Liora's voice carried perfect timing as her instruments tracked the creature's rotation.
Just as the green-eyed skull began to cast, Kess launched the fireball. Ricu's voice rose to an impossible pitch, sending the fireball careening toward the Hexchorus at incredible speed.
When the attack hit, the huge monster was rocked backward and sent spinning. It took longer to recover than it had before.
They continued like this, with different pairs working together to amplify their spells. Instead of targeting individual skulls randomly, they focused their combined firepower on each one as it extended to cast, maximizing damage before it could retreat.
The Hexchorus's defensive screeches came too late, its timing disrupted by the relentless pressure. Jay watched one skull after another crack and dissolve under the sustained attack.
But instead of making the creature stronger this time, the rapid destruction seemed to destabilize its core. The remaining skulls began glowing erratically, their magical emissions becoming chaotic rather than controlled.
"It's losing cohesion," Maelric reported, his empathic senses picking up something from the creature despite its undead nature. "The voices are… confused."
When only three skulls remained, Dahlia stepped forward. Shadows erupted from beneath the Hexchorus like grasping hands. The darkness didn't damage the creature directly, but it held it in place, keeping it from spinning, just long enough for the strike teams to unleash everything they had.
The sphere imploded with a sound like breaking glass mixed with dying screams. Skull fragments scattered across the dark pool's surface before dissolving into motes of light that were absorbed by the surrounding water.
The oppressive magical pressure that had filled the air throughout the battle dissipated, leaving only the normal chaos of the Spawning Pools' ambient energy.
As the battle-tension faded, Dahlia's intimidating persona melted away. She ran a hand through her magenta waves, her eyes returning to their normal golden color as the magic drained from them, and Jay saw her shoulders sag slightly with relief.
When she looked at him, her expression was soft, almost shy.
Her long, black ears were perked up and alert, but Jay noticed how they tilted slightly toward him, as if even in the aftermath of battle, part of her attention remained tuned to his presence.
"Casualties?" she asked, her voice resuming its commander's authority.
"Minor injuries only," Maelric replied, already moving between the casters to assess damage. "Whatever that thing was, we handled it better than I expected."
"You've come a long way since those first training sessions," Jay said, moving closer to Dahlia's side. "That level of coordination against an unknown opponent..." He paused, studying the faces around him. "That's not training anymore. That's real combat experience."
Dahlia stepped closer to him as her soldiers began their post-battle assessments, close enough that her arm brushed against his. The gesture looked casual to her troops, but Jay felt the subtle way she leaned into the contact, drawing comfort from his proximity.
"I saw you reaching for your blade, General." She gave him a look that was half-wink, half-smile. "Glad you didn't have to use it."
Jay laughed. "That wasn't because of anything you did or failed to do. The damned thing kept targeting me, even when I was well out of range."
"Something about you drew its attention, sir," Maelric said. "Many casting monsters focus on eliminating the largest magical threat first. I haven't seen you fight yet, but if that thing clocked you as enemy number one, I'm guessing you've got an impressive mana pool."
Dahlia's expression showed satisfaction mixed with concern. "The challenges are escalating faster than we anticipated. But I'm glad to see we're keeping pace. I can only imagine what the other territories are facing by now."
"Speaking of which," Jay said, glancing at the path leading from the Spawning Pools up into the jagged mountains of Dragon's Roost. "I should check on Lyra's progress."
The moment he mentioned leaving, something flickered across Dahlia's face—disappointment she tried to hide behind her commander's mask. But Jay caught it, the way her golden eyes softened with a hint of longing.
"Will you be back for dinner?" she asked, and though her tone remained casual, Jay heard the underlying hope. Her soldiers were busy enough with their post-battle cleanup that they missed the subtle vulnerability in their commander's voice.
"Wouldn't miss it," Jay replied, his voice warm with promise. "And whatever we get up to after dinner."
Dahlia's cheeks flushed slightly at the personal attention, but she managed to maintain her composed exterior.
"Well done, all of you,” Jay called.
The soldiers turned to salute him.
“I’ll see you back at camp?”
Dahlia bit her lip and nodded.
Then her playfulness dissolved as she returned to her soldiers. "Well, folks. We smashed that one out faster than usual. Which means…"
"Back to camp for an early night?" someone supplied hopefully.
"No!" Dahlia pointed at the speaker like she was shooting him down, but Jay caught the hint of amusement in her golden eyes. "Back to the boundary so the area can reset. We've got time to do another round."
Jay could hear some groans and some giggles as he made his way toward the path. But there were no real protests from the group of casters as they began to march toward the outer edge of the Spawning Pool territory.
As he walked away from the dark pool, now calm and reflective once more, Jay glanced back to see Dahlia watching him go. When their eyes met across the distance, she wiggled her fingers in a wave.
Her troops quickly switched from grumbles to post-battle analysis, their voices carrying the professional tone of soldiers who understood they'd just passed another test—and that harder ones were coming.
Fortunately, they were as excited about the challenges ahead as he was. Pride filled his chest as he made his way toward the path that would take him to Dragon’s Roost. Odd as they were, the casters were becoming real soldiers.
Dahlia had done a hell of a job.
And she looked pretty damned cute doing it, if Jay’s opinion counted for anything.
13
Dragon’s Roost
The crystal spire pressed cold against Jay's back as he crouched beside Lyra, the stone humming with frequencies that made his teeth ache. Above them, the shriek of a diving Cliffscar Harrier cut through the air like tearing metal. Its shadow raced across the prismatic ground as it plummeted toward the archer position fifty yards to their left.
"Now that's just laying it on a little thick," Lyra murmured, her silver hair catching rainbow light from the formations around them. Her bow was already in her hands, an arrow nocked.
The Harrier's scream scrambled Jay's HUD. That was an effect he hadn’t seen from a monster yet. But Lyra popped up from behind their cover like a jack-in-the-box, drew her bow in one fluid motion, and released an Impact Arrow that struck the diving predator dead center.
The bird exploded.
Literally exploded in a gory confetti of feathers, crystal fragments, and magical energy. The archer team it had been diving toward barely had time to duck before the remains rained down around them.
"Bullseye!" Lyra dropped back down beside him, grinning like she'd just won a carnival game instead of destroying a creature the size of a small aircraft.
Her fox ears were perked forward with excitement, and her tail swished behind her in a way that Jay found ridiculously endearing.
"Nicely done. Remind me never to get on your bad side."
She winked at him, then peered around the spire to assess the battlefield. “I might be persuaded to let you live if you keep saying nice things about my shooting."
“Keep shooting,” Jay said. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of nice things to say.”
“Aren’t you going to take any of them down, General Morgan?”
“Not if I can help it.” Jay watched the fox-girl as she sized up her next target. “You’re so good at it, after all. I love the way your eyes light up when you kill something.”
She loosed another arrow and let out a yip of excitement. Then she turned to him with her blue-and-gold eyes shining. “I can’t help it. It’s fun every time.”
Jay remembered the first few days he’d spent in the dungeon, with only Lyra to keep him company and show him the ropes. She’d been stuck at Level 6, unable to get far in the dungeon without a party—after Dax and his team had faked their own deaths, leaving Lyra to take the blame as a ‘cursed’ Delver. Level 6 had seemed so far out of his league at the time, it wasn’t even funny.
After all the training they’d done lately, Jay wouldn’t be surprised if they were all approaching Level 40 or higher. Kalasi and Aurora who’d been Level 62 and 48 respectively, would probably be closer to Level 75 and 60 by now. It was annoying that their stats were broken and their class/skill menus didn’t work normally in the Hunting Grounds. But he could feel them getting stronger every day.
Still, every time he looked at Lyra, he remembered the very beginning. How scared and desperate he’d been, entering the dungeon to try to find the items they needed to bring Molly back from the Portal Sleep that had knocked her unconscious. Lyra had protected him. She’d taught him everything she knew. And when he’d surpassed her in level, she’d immediately deferred to him as the expert.
It didn’t surprise him that she was having fun training with her soldiers, though. Lyra had a knack for teaching. And for having fun.
“What are you smirking at?” she asked, her silver ears flattening into her hair. “Do I have something in my tail?”
“Nothing,” he said. “You’re just nice to look at. Keep shooting. I want to see what else you’ve got.”
“Hate to break it to you, Jay. But I think you’ve seen just about everything there is to see… pretty up close and personal.”
She yipped with laughter, her tail wagging like a happy dog.
The Dragon's Roost stretched around them in impossible grandeur—crystal formations that sang in harmonies that bypassed the ears and spoke directly to the bones, thermals that could lift a person clean off their feet if they weren't careful, and monsters that had adapted to use the environment's magical properties as weapons. The air itself shimmered with so much ambient mana that Jay could taste it, metallic and electric on his tongue.
Lyra had positioned her archer teams across multiple levels of the jagged terrain, each group mixing traditional military archers with the magical specialists—some Arcane Archers, like Lyra, but others who used magic bombs shot from slings or catapults, and more who used summoned projectiles he’d never even heard of.
The more time Jay had spent with the various groups, the more he realized that a Delver’s specific skill set wasn’t necessarily what determined what kind of fighter they would be. It was all about style.
Cobbin Wick could easily have been with the Casters, but he fought like a tank. Bram Flintbraid might have been a great tank, but he liked the fast, hard-hitting fight style of DPS melee. Maelric seemed more like a support type, with his empathy and healing focus, but the same spells he used to help his allies could be devastating to his enemies, and he alternated between the two positions so smoothly he might as well have been two people.
Similarly, many of the soldiers in Lyra’s team, he might have sorted into Caster or DPS training. But he’d left it up to the soldiers to choose for themselves, and he was glad he had. When it was up to them, they pushed their skills in ways they might never have done otherwise, creating completely new ways of fighting with the same old basic skills.
It was something to behold.
From his vantage point, Jay could see at least thirty soldiers spread across the spires. Their positions had been chosen to provide overlapping fields of fire while taking advantage of the crystal formations' amplification effects.
"Contact left!" Reedy Fen called from a platform twenty feet above them. The young man's flame-red hair was impossible to miss as he tracked a swarm of Shardwings with his oversized bow. "Bat-birds incoming!"
The crystal creatures moved like swallows on amphetamines, their chaotic flight patterns making them nearly impossible to predict. But Jay watched as the archer teams responded with a finely honed technique. Instead of trying to track individual targets, they created kill zones—areas of concentrated arrow fire that the Shardwings had to pass through to reach their intended victims.
All was going well until some sort of magic missile joined the fray and a Shardwing swarm burst in a spray of molten glass, causing the archers below to shout and dive for cover.
"Physical attacks only on the sparkle-bats!" Lyra called, her voice carrying easily across the crystal amplification chambers. "Magic makes them pop, and popping is bad when they're flying over your heads!”
Senna Brightwater proved the wisdom of that advice by putting a conventional arrow through the center of a Shardwing formation just as they aligned for their diving attack. The crystal creature shattered like glass, its death throes causing the rest of the swarm to scatter in confusion.
"Nice shot, Senna!" Lyra's enthusiasm was infectious, her cheering making the archer grin and wave before turning back to hunt for more targets. “See, you don’t have to be fancy to be effective!”
Jay found himself studying Senna's technique. The woman moved like she’d been born with a bow in her hand, with a fluid grace he wasn’t sure any amount of practice could achieve. But there was something else—a stillness in her positioning that reminded him of professional snipers. She didn't waste motion, didn't fidget while waiting for shots, and her release was so smooth it seemed effortless.
"Senna was a Hunter before integration," Lyra said, following his gaze. "Spent years tracking deer through the forests around Winterhaven. Until she joined the Black Howl, she only entered the dungeon to hunt the few creatures who drop meat so she could feed her family.”
“She seems to be doing okay applying those skills to things that can shoot back," Jay said.
Lyra paused, watching the woman line up another shot. "I think she might be better than I am at pure marksmanship."
