Ashara blinked.
The cavern looked different.
The rocks were the same, the goblins were the same, the green moss on the walls hadn't changed. But layered on top of everything, faint, like looking through fog, there was a haze. Smoke-like, clinging to every living thing in the chamber. The goblins had it, thin and grey, wisps curling off their bodies. Mira had it, warmer, denser, a soft silver cloud around her shoulders. Jesse, up on the ledge, had a faint shimmer around his hands.
Daniela's was bright. A tight, controlled layer of white-blue that hugged close to her body.
[What am I looking at?]
The shaman's haze was different from all of them.
It was thick, dark green, churning around its body like a storm, and as Ashara watched, part of that haze condensed around the creature's right hand, pulling tight, getting brighter, getting denser—
[MOVE.]
Ashara threw herself sideways. A bolt of green lightning hit the spot where she'd been standing. The stone cracked and smoked.
[Holy shit. Holy SHIT.]
She hit the ground, rolled, got her feet under her. The shaman was staring at her. Its yellow eyes were wide. It hadn't expected her to dodge that.
[I saw it. I saw the mana build up before it cast. That's what this is. I can see mana.]
The shaman's haze shifted again. Left hand this time, the green pulling tight around its fingers.
"Daniela, dodge!"
Daniela didn't ask questions. She changed direction, and the bolt missed her by a foot.
[Okay. Okay, I can work with this.]
The shaman snarled and raised both hands. Ashara watched the mana build, split, two bolts charging at once, one aimed at each of them.
"Get down!"
Daniela dove left. Ashara dove right. The bolts hit nothing but stone.
Daniela came up from her dive and charged the platform from behind, her lance aimed at the shaman's neck. She thrust hard, clean, fast, the kind of strike that should've ended it.
The shaman spun and caught the lance on its staff.
Not deflected with mana this time. Caught. Physically. The wooden staff, covered in bones and teeth and carvings, took the impact and the shaman shoved Daniela's lance aside with raw strength, forcing her back a step.
[It parried that. That thing just parried Daniela's lance with a stick.]
The shaman swung its staff at Daniela's head. She ducked, thrust again, and the shaman knocked her blade away a second time. It was fast. Too fast for a creature that had been sitting cross-legged doing a ritual thirty seconds ago.
[It's not just a mage. It's strong, too. That's why it's C-rank.]
Ashara ran at the platform. The shaman's haze flared, condensing toward its right hand again, aimed at Daniela's back.
"Behind you!"
Daniela sidestepped without looking. Ashara vaulted onto the platform and threw a reinforced hook at the shaman's skull. It ducked, spun its staff low, and swept her legs out from under her. She hit the stone hard, air gone from her lungs.
[Fuck—]
The shaman raised its staff to bring it down on her head. Daniela's lance came in from the side, forcing it to block. Ashara rolled away, got back up.
They came at it together.
Daniela from the front, lance thrusting, keeping it busy. Ashara from the side, fists swinging, forcing it to split its attention. The shaman blocked, dodged, redirected, its staff moving in tight circles, but it was losing ground. It couldn't watch both of them at once.
The haze flared again, building fast.
"Dodge!"
Daniela was already moving. The bolt went wide. Ashara closed the gap and drove a reinforced uppercut into the shaman's ribs. She felt bone crack under her knuckles. The shaman staggered, wheezed, swung its staff at her head. She ducked it. Daniela came in from behind with a thrust aimed at the base of its spine.
The shaman twisted and deflected the lance, but just barely. It was slowing down.
They pressed harder.
Daniela thrust, Ashara punched. The shaman blocked one and ate the other. Ashara caught a staff strike across her forearm and her whole arm went numb, but she grit her teeth and threw another hook with her other hand. Daniela got a thrust past the staff and opened a gash along the shaman's side. Green-black blood hit the stone.
The shaman screamed. Its whole body flared with mana, that dark green haze expanding outward, and Ashara felt the pressure of it push against her skin.
"It's doing it again, big one, get back!"
Daniela backed off. Ashara backed off. The shaman raised both hands above its head, mana swirling—
A blade went through its throat.
From behind. From below. One of the captive adventurers, the woman Ashara had noticed earlier, was on her knees behind the platform with a short sword buried in the shaman's neck up to the hilt. Her face was white, her arms were trembling, but she held on.
The shaman's eyes went wide. The mana around its hands flickered, sputtered, and died. It choked, grabbed at the blade, and then its legs gave out.
It fell.
The chamber went quiet.
The remaining goblins, the few that Jesse and Mira hadn't already dealt with, froze. They looked at the dead shaman. They looked at each other. Then, one by one, they bolted, scattering into the side tunnels.
Ashara stood on the platform, breathing hard, her fists still glowing faint amber. The haze was fading from her vision, the smoke-like layers around everyone getting thinner until she couldn't see them anymore.
[It's fading. Whatever that was, it's going away.]
She flexed her hands. The glow dimmed and went out.
Daniela lowered her lance. She was bleeding from a cut on her cheek. She looked at Ashara, then at the dead shaman, then at the adventurer who'd delivered the killing blow.
"..."
The woman collapsed. Mira caught her before she hit the ground.
---
Getting out of the cave took longer than getting in.
Two of the five captives were dead. The shaman had drained them dry. The remaining three could walk, barely, leaning on walls and on each other. Greta was the strongest of them, which wasn't saying much. Mira led the way, checking corners. Ashara walked at the back, fists sore, mana down to fumes.
The sunlight at the cave entrance was the best thing Ashara had ever seen.
They sat outside for a while. The adventurers drank water and didn't say much. The woman who'd killed the shaman, Greta, sat against a rock with her eyes closed and her hands still shaking. She'd been in there for two days.
"Thought we were dead," Greta said, not opening her eyes. "Felt the mana leaving. Couldn't move, couldn't speak. Just felt it draining, bit by bit."
"..."
"Thanks, kid."
"Don't mention it," Ashara said.
A wagon showed up about an hour later, coming up the dirt path from the main road. Two people on the front seat, a man and a woman, both in adventurer gear, both looking like they hadn't slept in days. Friends of the missing party, come to check on them.
The man jumped off the wagon before it stopped and ran to Greta. The woman started helping the others into the back.
"We've been trying to get a party together to come look for them," the man said, his arm around Greta. "What happened in there?"
"Goblin shaman," Ashara said. "C-rank. It was draining their mana."
The man stared at her. Then he looked at Mira, at Jesse, at Daniela. Four academy students, bruised, bloodied, still in their school uniforms.
"Damn, there was a C-Rank monster in there?"
"We got lucky," Jesse replied.
"No kidding."
They loaded up and headed back to Lumendell together.
Ashara sat in the back of the wagon, her head against the wooden side, watching the trees go by. Mira was asleep next to her, her head on Ashara's shoulder, her ears twitching every few minutes. Jesse was passed out across from them. Daniela sat at the other end, her lance across her knees, her back straight even now.
Their eyes met.
Daniela held her gaze for a moment. Then she gave a small nod.
Ashara nodded back.
[That's probably the closest thing to a compliment I'm gonna get from her.]
She closed her eyes and let the wagon carry her home.