Uncle Gogri was very clever. He was quite satisfied with that Gnoll Warden. At least it hadn't used up its precious skill right away.
He had barely had a moment to celebrate before he swung his staff, ready to whack Taelan. Taelan Fordring had charged Uncle Gogri because, unlike the other gnolls, he wasn't wielding a meteor hammer. Instead, he held a staff topped with a crescent moon. Taelan would have recognized it even if it had been burned to ashes! Wasn't that the Three-Seven Staff?
The Three-Seven Staff was none other than the famous Crescent Staff! It was renowned for granting seven points each to intellect, spirit, and stamina. It was an extremely popular weapon in the Vanilla Era!
Crescent Staff
Two-Handed
Quality: Rare
41–71 Damage, Speed 2.9
(20.3 damage per second)
+7 Intellect
+7 Spirit
+7 Stamina
Durability: 90/90
He suspected this old fellow was an ambitious gnoll, like Hogger, and must know how to cast spells. It had shown up in his Energy Perception, but now, seeing it clutch its staff like a club and swing it at him, he felt relieved.
He endured the paralysis from being struck by the ball of lightning and turned to attack the Gnoll Warden instead! That thing knew a powerful Shaman spell: Purify. The spell could remove beneficial magic from its target, and in early versions, it could even deal 400 damage to summoned creatures! It also slowed them for five seconds, making it the bane of human Archmages.
(The reason human Archmages were picked first was that they could summon Water Elementals, giving them strong leveling abilities early on, and their Brilliance Aura worked well with Sorceresses and Priests. This Warden could quickly kill the Water Elementals summoned by an Archmage.)
But its race had a naturally low intellect, making it impossible for it to learn Occultism. As a result, the spell had an absurdly long cooldown! It couldn't be used more than twice in a single fight. That made it especially good at drawing aggro. It never lived long enough to run out of mana.
Taelan Fordring skillfully used his shield to block the attacks, then charged and struck the Warden with a Charge-and-Shield Bash combo. He followed up with a flurry of blows. By then, Jaina and Janice had reached the camp. Seeing Taelan fighting five opponents alone, they hurriedly unleashed their strongest attacks. Jaina cast Frostbolt, while Jandice fired a Fireball, a mid-level spell that only a few advanced mage apprentices could use.
Taelan's Aura of Might boosted their magic attacks. The Gnoll Warden was slowed by Frostbolt, then hit by a Fireball, and promptly died! Purify really was a taunt skill!
Uncle Gogri cursed inwardly. "That idiot died before casting Purify! What if the brat had a buff on him?" He had completely forgotten his earlier praise and good mood! Taelan Fordring had no time to think about Purify. He blocked Uncle Gogri's staff strikes with his shield and fired six Holy Bolts in a row. Thanks to the massive intellect bonus from the Eye of Violet, he still had plenty of mana. If things got rough, he could just activate both trinkets. He'd keep bashing until the enemy dropped, and if that didn't kill it, he'd chop it down with Zeal!
Tirion Fordring often taught him that a Paladin should always keep one trump card in reserve, whether it was a talent like Blessing of Freedom or Every Man for Himself, or some powerful skill no one knew about. He had to hold something back in case of an emergency!
Uncle Gogri had thought victory was assured today, but the situation had taken a sudden turn. The human brat was ridiculously tough, and he'd even summoned two young women. One used ice, the other fire, and in the blink of an eye, they had burned his deputy to ashes! He immediately ordered his three foolish underlings to shoot Jaina. Frostbolt was clearly more hateful than Fireball!
Sure enough, Tirion Fordring had been right. A warrior commanding a battle had to keep a backup plan in reserve. Otherwise, he needed to learn the Warrior skill Challenging Shout, even if it could only protect his allies for ten seconds.
Taelan Fordring cast Power Word: Shield on Jaina. A semitransparent, milky-white shield instantly surrounded her. Its defenses were astonishing: the three arrows merely sent ripples across its surface before falling to the ground. Uncle Gogri gaped. He'd seen Priests use that skill before, but never this powerfully! And wasn't she still just a little one?
Jaina, who had been startled, quickly recovered and began focusing her attacks with Jandice on the Gnoll Archer Taelan was fighting. Another underling soon went flying. Uncle Gogri panicked! He stopped paying attention to the human brat attacking him and charged straight at the unprotected Jandice. It seemed that the so-called aggro system in World of Warcraft was completely useless! Monsters had brains too. They could tell which target posed the greater threat and which enemy was worth attacking!
Taelan Fordring knew that mages hit incredibly hard, but they were bound to have low health and weak defenses. Besides, neither of them knew Ice Barrier yet. At least Jaina didn't. She hadn't received systematic training, and the magic circuits formed by her Ysera Dream Meditation were suited only to manipulating nature and soul energies, not elemental ones. She didn't have a meditation technique yet, and such techniques were the absolute secrets of spellcasters, passed down only between master and apprentice.
Lately, he'd been learning from Solarian and had picked up plenty of new knowledge. Mages without magical protection could even be harmed by ordinary people, and rage was also a supernatural power. Another thing was that the world of Azeroth differed from the world he'd originally come from: its power levels were incredibly high. Even ordinary creatures held different kinds of energy within them, and they could show up in the active skill Energy Detection, though the strength varied.
Some powers were incredibly mysterious. For instance, he had awakened Energy Perception. This ability was the foundation of becoming a legendary spellcaster. Energy Detection was an active ability that could be learned later, but Energy Perception was passive and couldn't be learned; it could only be gained through mutation. So no creature should ever be underestimated!
Taelan Fordring didn't dare take any chances. He quickly charged and intercepted Gogri, and the man and gnoll clashed again! After several consecutive Mortal Strikes, Gogri had no chance to direct his two remaining underlings. Jaina and Jandice quickly brought them down with their magic. Taelan gained a substantial amount of experience. If he killed this Gnoll Overseer, he should reach level 13. He resisted the urge to activate his trinkets, unleash Zeal, and fire off a barrage of Holy Bolts. He let the two women deal the damage while he focused on controlling and protecting the battlefield. His powerful Hammer of Justice was giving Gogri a hard time!
With his underlings gone, Gogri was surrounded! He was certainly much stronger than the human brat—after all, he had the strength of a Warlord! But that brat was so tough! Gogri had been hit by Frostbolt again and again, yet the little mage apprentice still hadn't run out of mana! If Taelan had known what he was thinking, he would have said, You really are a genius!
Jaina's future as a Hero unit was no joke! Her natural mana reserves were surely several times his own, and she would eventually awaken Brilliance Aura! Her mana regeneration was astonishing. If Gogri thought he could wait for her to run out of mana, he might as well go to sleep!
Gogri was starting to feel weak. He was bleeding, slowed by Frostbolt, and battered by Fireball explosions. He decided he couldn't wait any longer. He raised the Crescent Staff in his right hand, and green light suddenly flared in his left. Taelan Fordring and the two women immediately felt the soil beneath their feet soften, and their bodies began to sink. Oh no, Entangling Roots! A natural spell, and an innate ability.
As the battle went on, Jandice's instinct to seek protection drew her closer to Taelan. Now all three of them were trapped by Entangling Roots.
So Gogri's ambition to become a Warlord hadn't been entirely delusional. He had a trick up his sleeve after all.
Seeing that Entangling Roots had trapped the three human brats, Gogri turned and ran to the garbage pile. He dug out a green scroll, then began chanting in somewhat mangled Thalassian at the trees by the camp entrance.
As the scroll in Gogri's hand vanished, the three stared in astonishment as several trees disappeared. In their place stood three towering Treants.
This was getting out of hand. The gnoll was a Druid!
"Ah, my leg!"
Battles are going to get harder and harder to write, because as characters grow stronger, they learn more and more spells and abilities. Forget just one spell, and everything gets messed up. But it's impossible to account for every situation.
Also, please don't base every setting entirely on real life. This is a game-like, otherworldly story. Take looting corpses, for example. It can't work exactly like real life, with everything a monster owns becoming yours after you kill it. If Archimonde died and resurrected on Argus, would he have to come back naked? And if Sargeras wiped out the Titans, surely the equipment he took from them would be insanely powerful.
Also, thank you all for the recommendation votes. Thank you!
Before you continue