Unchosen Champion

Another day of the siege went by and the Frenzied Excavators finally ceased spawning. Ruin Excavators appeared in the darkness but they behaved the way the Ancient Defenders did, listlessly waiting for someone to get in range and otherwise being harmless. Coop took note of the potential Ruin Excavator grind zone and was excited about being able to return to the pearlescent chambers to complete quest chains, but that would obviously have to wait.

Gibson and his squad headed for their own long break, to rest up and recuperate, but Coop rushed to get involved with fighting the Tormenting Kites. It didn’t take long for him to be knee deep in the aquamarine sea, west of the moat, with his spear and shield gleaming in the late morning sunshine. Coop was excited for a new enemy to fight and to be out of the dimly lit caverns underground. It felt good to have the tropical sun on his skin again. The huge pig watched him as he lounged at the end of the channel. Apparently, the Kites weren’t enough to rouse the big fella.

There hadn’t been any new developments, like an unknown Field Boss joining the fight, and the ranged fighters had scraped a stalemate with the Kites by just exchanging pot shots at each other. Most of the actual defeats of the monsters had been from the pirates, who were using the corvettes to strafe the tormenting monsters, periodically running them down as they slowly and inevitably collected outside of the walls like flotsam drifting with the currents.

Defeating the Frenzied Excavators inside of his Fog of War had become routine enough for Coop to spend the full day coming up with ideas for fighting the Kites, and he had several tactics to try.

The obvious choice would be to liberally throw his spear, using Retribution to return it to his hand for free. He’d never run out of projectiles that way and he was strong enough to defeat the Kites with every throw.

However, the reliable choice of spear throwing was his second backup plan, only to be used when he ran low on mana. The first backup plan was to abuse his mistjumps, taking the wave as an opportunity to exercise his Practical Application passive and reduce the cost of teleporting as much as possible. He was sure he would end up applying both tactics during the course of the wave, but he had one more experimental idea to try out first.

He resummoned his hoplon, the round shield that was also tentatively a frisbee like projectile if he sufficiently developed his offhand throws. The shield was slightly different than normal. It was still solid, but he had altered the composition. He wouldn’t be able to use it to block anything at the moment. It was purely a weapon with his current alterations.

Coop viewed the approaching Kites and selected his target. The monsters were spread apart and looked very similar to a smack of jellyfish drifting above the surface of the ocean. It wasn’t obvious where they were coming from other than it seemed like they were spread evenly along the entire horizon. They were slow and spread out, but they were inevitable.

Coop could see thousands with the group of Kites extending all the way to the edge of the mana dome. Some of them were engaged with ranged defenders on the ramparts, applying their dodges when projectiles were launched at them and lobbing their own attacks back. It was the most leisurely of the waves as the creatures weren’t an aggressive surge of monsters like the rest had been.

Without the walls, this wave would have been a nightmare, but with the fort it was certainly among the easier ones. Ranged monsters coming from all directions without cover to hide behind wouldn’t be a good time.

Preparing to throw his shield and really enter the fray, he aimed and fired with an overhand motion like he was switch pitching. The hoplon flew straight and even though Coop still lacked the natural fluidity of a practiced throw, he managed to put a good amount of power into it. The Tormenting Kite failed to dodge, not fast enough to match Coop’s Strength, even when he clumsily applied it, and the shield slammed into the monster’s tentacle-like appendages.

The alterations he had made to the shield worked exactly as he intended. The shield exploded into shrapnel as it shattered against the metallic Kite. He had come up with the idea when he considered how it had broken into pieces in the past and also remembered some skills he had observed previously. The skill of the Shattershot back on the oil rig who had fired ice arrows that shattered on impact and dealt incidental damage in an area instead of piercing, then there was the glass mage that was synergizing with Charlie’s winds, creating bullets out of raindrop sized projectiles had both been sources of inspiration.