SoK Chapter 203

With the storm boosting his Attributes, TJ sprinted forward, seamlessly becoming a coatl and slithering through the grass without hesitating. He could taste a foreign electricity in the air, not from his storm, but that of an interloper. The pride of ownership and responsibility demanded that he seize back the complete control over his Divine Authority. As such, the Storm Serpent didn’t hesitate to continue his rush forward as he went to stop the fury of lightning that looked to descend on his people. With a snarl on his face and a draconic roar filling the air, TJ pulled some of the resources from the storm that he had created and thrust them into empowering his Storm Manipulation. With this, he wrested some of the energy from the first bolt of lightning that threatened to fall on the primitive settlement his people had made.

Due to TJ‘s strength, he ripped the bolts from a thickly condensed ray of death to instead become an arcing beautiful pattern that spread for nearly a quarter mile in every direction. The ribbons of lightning, as they danced in the heavens, lit the terrified faces of his followers while they tried to do something against the flock of thunderbirds that fought to bring the wrath of the skies down on them. The birds all circled up at least a mile up in the air, their ritual magic growing stronger by the minute. As the arcing sphere of energy that the monsters used to attack was weakened, the Thunderbirds screamed out in unison, seemingly excited to have him arrive.

“Get the fuckers down here,” Molly demanded, “because I need to rip at least one of them apart myself.”

“Language, honey.“ Lucy reached a hand out to place on her daughter‘s shoulder. As a horse–sized lightning dog, it was almost like a rider calming their steed, but Molly threw off her mother’s hand and locked eyes with Tessie. The other teenager's face was stricken and pale, but her stance was solid as she glared up at the monsters.

“Penny was the last person that I’ve let die in front of me.” She snarled as she drew her bow and aimed it at the heavens. “I’m not going to renew that timer.“

As the Acolyte said the words, she pulled her bowstring back, letting loose dozens of arrows into the sky, each one splitting into dozens more until a veritable rain of arrows was in the air and flying towards the birds. Lightning flashed and crisped dozens of the arrows to nothing, but hundreds more followed until, seemingly, Tessie had entirely exhausted herself in creating so many projectiles. The Acolyte faltered and fell to her knees, but she’d achieved her goal, blanketing the sky with so much of her ammunition that the monsters simply couldn’t avoid them all. Most of the thunderbirds screeched in pain as arrows struck true, but none faltered as they continued to funnel energy into the thundering, crackling sphere. As the arrows missed and started to fall back down to the ground, the thunderbirds again avoided them and TJ cursed. He started to prepare his MP to fend off all of the attacks, but Tessie shook her head.

“You don’t need to do that,” she warned, but before she was finished speaking, the arrows started to fizzle out of existence, not falling even halfway back down to the remnants of humanity that stood below them.

“I need you to do something to take care of these bastards and get them down here.” Molly snarled again. “They almost got Luz.”

TJ’s already burning rage crystallized at that, and he snarled, “Any of you that have any way to get into the air, come with me. We’re having chicken for dinner.”

The Neophyte coiled himself, allowing his Storm Manipulation to gather around his coiled body before he threw himself upward into the air without further thought. He hadn’t intended to show any mercy to the monsters, but if they thought they could come back here and make nuisances of themselves, he would prove them wrong. A flurry of projectiles, crossbow bolts, spears, and others, flanked him as he rose, and TJ gave the weapons greater velocity through his winds as he approached the enemy. Once he got closer, he saw that there were twelve of the thunderbirds now, and a new male had taken his place among them. Larger than the other one that TJ’d killed, this patriarch was something different, its feathers a lighter hue, almost yellow instead of dark brown. When TJ Appraised it, his stomach dropped.

Thunderbird Patriarch Boss (Copper (I)), Level 36

That wasn’t what he was prepared for, not at all. TJ didn’t hesitate to push Divine Manifestation into strengthening Divine Transformation and Storm Manipulation. Different from the Wendigo, this was a Boss that TJ knew very little about. The System wasn’t about to give him any information either, so TJ simply gritted his teeth and continued to try to pull the lightning apart while he closed in enough to keep the painfully agile monsters from evading his every attempt. There was very little that he could do to completely stop the monsters’ lightning, but one thing he could do was pull at least part of its ownership back to himself. As he’d been the one to create the storm, it already was partial to him, and as he forced the thunderbirds to relinquish some of their own control over the storm in order to maintain ownership of their lightning ball, the storm started fighting to take back its strength from the birds.

Making as much progress as he could, TJ drew closer, feeling a surge of possible victory as the stormy clouds held some of the thunderbirds back from being able to escape. As before, he concentrated a fair amount of wind on his tongue, but instead of lengthening the wind into a blade, he compressed it further to blow apart the thunderbirds’ formation. That was when he learned about one of the largest differences between the Boss and Elite forms of the Thunderbird patriarchs. Instead of dodging out of the way of his attack and attempting to kite backwards, the new patriarch dove straight through the compressed wind, allowing it to slightly bloody its feathers, but causing no real, lasting damage. Then, completely undeterred by the relative size difference, the patriarch rushed into physical battle with him.

The other patriarch that he’d killed had been maybe 4 feet long in the body with a 12 or 13 foot wingspan. This new patriarch, the Boss, was about twice as large, so an absolutely gigantic bird, but less than a quarter of his total length. Now was the time for a measuring contest, though. The thunderbird Boss made its wings, feet, and talons all glow with a yellow electricity as it engaged in melee with him. TJ snapped wildly at the monster, trying to ward it off, but as with the others, the thunderbird was remarkably quick. Each stroke of its wings shook the air around him, and though TJ‘s Divine Authority kept the monster from creating any real storm, the fight immediately turned bloody, and without any aspect of it going in TJ‘s favor.

Talons, beak, and even wings cut through TJ‘s defenses, and he was forced to remember that, even though this was a bird, he couldn’t think that his expectations would abide by what he expected a bird to do. This was a Boss, and it outleveled him significantly, so he needed to remember the danger he was getting himself into. Even as he thought as much, the thunderbird dodged underneath another of his bites and spun like a top with both of its wings, cutting open parallel lines in stripes down his belly. Fortunately, his Toughness was high enough that each strike only went about 2 inches into his stomach instead of entirely disemboweling him, but each wound added up.

With even a moment’s thought, TJ cursed himself for not taking the several minutes necessary to prepare Ritualistic Transfer. One of the first things he’d thought of back when he got the Skill was that it could make one individual a perfect champion on behalf of the rest, but he’d thrown himself forward in anger instead of putting even a little bit of planning into what was happening. His MP and HP didn’t stop dropping, and as they did, TJ couldn’t help but see the half dozen afflictions that flashed on his status. Electrocuted, bleeding, injured, and several more filled his eyes, reminding him that he was absolutely, totally losing this fight. The other thunderbirds closed in to turn the tides even more against him, but fortunately that was when Sarah arrived.

Her wings flashed purple, green, yellow, and blue, each feather like one of those that crested his head, and with a shout of defiance, she sliced through two of the thunderbird Elites focused on him. The kill notifications flashed in his vision as their bodies tumbled from the air, and Sarah howled in victory as she flashed past TJ to menace the Boss. It retreated from the more agile Valkyrie, and she called out as she flew past, “Damn! This is a Boss?”

“You thought I was going to be in such a sorry state against a regular Elite? You wound me!” TJ tried to joke back, but his pain and anger kept him from truly committing to it. Instead, he squinted at the Boss that fled faster than Sarah out of her reach before turning his gaze on the Storm Serpent. Despite Sarah being the one who killed the two females, it was obvious that the Thunderbird wanted his blood, even as it dropped like rain from the skies. TJ needed to change his approach somehow, and his mind raced as the still surviving thunderbirds returned to their circle to strengthen the lightning sphere once again.

“Sarah, take care of those for now! I can hold on for a little while longer at least.” TJ made the decision and commanded her to do so, though he sensed the hesitation in Sarah‘s body language once she received the demand.

Disregarding anything else his Valkyrie had to say, TJ again compressed wind into his mouth, but this time with the intent to create a vacuum. The Boss seemed to be trying to figure out if it should go support its females or finish him off, but as TJ approached, it was obvious what its choice was. Its screech filled the air as it flew forward to continue eviscerating the flying coatl. With hesitation, TJ allowed for the monster to get a couple more good hits in on him, though his HP still remained above 2,500. Then, as it swept past his face in an attempt to take his eye out, TJ finally let his rage free and let out the implosion of wind. A tornado erupted from his mouth as TJ let nearly 2,000 of his MP free in one explosive burst. Winds whipped forward and yanked the Boss towards his face with a surprised squawk. 

Before the monster could fully react, it was in his mouth and TJ gnashed his jaws as the glorious taste of its blood filled his mouth. The monster skree’ed in rage as TJ spent hundreds of MP more to continue shredding its body to pieces. Before he could even think that he’d been successful, the Boss turned into actual lightning that flowed between his fangs and into the open air. There, it resumed a physical body, one covered by its own blood. TJ rallied to go do the same thing to the monster again, but before he could close the distance, the Boss screeched, the sound making lighting explode into being around itself and the rest of its harem of females. There wasn’t time to react as each of the females morphed into bolts of lightning that merged with the patriarch. A clap of thunder attempted to make TJ turn away but failed. Even so, there was nothing he could do but watch as the lighting exploded back into being nearly a mile away and the Boss fled with its family.

The sky didn’t care about the way TJ voiced his rage, and he descended while Sarah voiced his same opinion.

“I’m gonna kill the fucker.”