Lady of Curses

After hearing the roar they sprinted in action. ''Grab Alex.'' Without turning her head June commanded Grefured to take Alex and to follow her. June started running in the direction of the monster's corpse. The mana potion was still working as it pumped her full of mana, but her body was exhausted by now, but even then she ran as fast as she could, while Grefured was right behind her with Alex in his jaws, dragging the poor human against the ground. But Alex didn't make a sound he knew that their situation wasn't good.

Sam and Kayne on the other hand ran in the direction where June was coming from. They were exhausted but it was do or die situation. They ran to Hubert, in sync they squatted down and then picked the fully armored man. ''Uff!'' Sam let out a slight push of air as she started to carry Hubert. It would be more optimal to take off all of his armor, but they had no time.

June and Grefured finally arrived at the corpse, she turned around to see how far Kayne and Sam were. They weren't far and they were steadily approaching her. Seeing that her party is at least somewhat safe, June started to channel a spell, so that when the rest of the group arrives she was ready to activate.

''scree...scrrrEE...sccRRRAAA....SCCCRAAAA'' While the party was busy saving everyone's life, Alex was just laying there, not able to help as Sam and Kayne were running with Hubert in their arms. While a wave of screaming Drekavaces burst into the room. Their anger was fully displayed on their faces, while they ran at the party ready to tear them apart. 

Alex saw how the angry wave trampled over Hubert's sword and shield that were left behind, the monsters didn't stop for anything, even their kin that got trampled, all they saw was their target, and unfortunately for Alex, that target was him and his friends.

''Ugh!'' Hubert let out a groan when he was thrown on the ground. But he didn't complain, because they finally made it to their needed location, and the two beastkin were exhausted, Hubert knew that he was heavy plus the armor didn't help.

''Live cage.'' June completed her spell a few seconds after Sam and Kayne arrived. Giant roots came out of the ground and made a spherical cage that encompassed the party and the monster's corpse. It was a cage that self regenerated so the party should be safe from most attacks, from these Drekavaces. 

As for the sound attacks, Sam pulled out a magic stone and activated the spell it was containing. It created a barrier around them that blocked all sound from inside and outside. ''Sigh~'' Finally they could relax June plopped down, Sam and Kayne followed her and crumbled on the ground from exhaustion.

Now the only thing they needed to figure out was how they will get out of here. But they had plenty of time, they had food rations and if they ended they had a giant monster's corpse behind them, and for water, June could create some if needed. The only thing they needed was to be careful not to step out of the sound barrier because it wasn't as big as the cage. But even then it was plenty big for the party.

June watched as the monster wave crashed into the cage, she saw how those feral monsters screamed at them, how the monsters tried to get through the cage's gaps, but couldn't. The monsters started to attack the cage, they used their teeth and claws to break the cage. But nothing worked, the cage regenerated the damage.

Slowly the wave surrounded almost all of the cage from top to bottom. Almost no light was coming inside the cage, so Kayne decided to make a small fire. 

Finally, June was starting to relax completely, ready to enjoy some safety in this cage, until she saw something that made her lose hope. The monsters were so many that the cage couldn't keep up with its regeneration. It would still take a few hours for the monsters to break through but, they were many and the party had nowhere to run, this was bad.

June informed the rest of the party about the predicament so that they could come up with something that could help. But no such luck, there were some suggestions that would buy a little bit of time, like killing them from afar, but it would get them a minimal amount of time and exhaust them even more.

That was until Grefured snuggled closer to June, making the elf think of an idea that could work. 

***

After Aella stepped inside the summoning circle everything went white for a second. Before the white all around her dissipated into a mist, and showed her a new view. 

Aella was no longer in the library, but instead, the was some kind of cave looking by the floor. There was dark and the only light was a little campfire near her. Looking around a little bit further, she saw a large corpse of a monster, at least she presumed it was dead with all the pool of blood that was beneath the monster. 

The next thing she looked at was the living cage that was made out of wood, and the numerous monsters that were trying to break the cage. Aella was somewhat confused about what kind of situation she was in. So finally she looked at the five people and a wolf that were looking at her.

''Hi, I'm Aella and I presume you're the one who summoned me?'' Finally, Aella decided to break this silence by addressing the blond elf that was looking at her with its blue eyes. Aella presumed that this elf was the one who summoned her because the blond elf looked like a mage from Aella's perspective. 

''I'm June, and yes I was the one who summoned you, I wanted you to make those monsters incapable of breaking through this cage.''  June composed herself and stood up while responding to Aella. ''As a reward you can take that monster's core.'' June showed the monster's corpse that was just lying there.

''Deal.'' Aella nodded and automatically went for her monster's core that was inside its dead body. She needed that core to be able to activate her curs on that wave of monsters. If she didn't she would drain all her mana and that wouldn't be good. 

The body was outside the sound barrier, so when Aella stepped out of the barrier. ''SCREEEEE...'' She heard the unpleasant screams that were made all around her. So she picked up the pace to get the monster core. The monster's body was full of holes so it wasn't hard to locate the core, all she had to do is go inside one of the holes and dig out the core from the body's flesh. It wasn't long before Aella had the core free from the flesh, after all, half of the core was already exposed before she even started. 

So now with bloody feet, hands, and the cloak she was wearing she returned to the barrier with the monster's mana core in her hands.

''Let's get started.'' Holding the core in one hand, and putting up the other hand with the palm facing up, Aella activated her [Curse of Weakness]. The moment she did that, black smoke blasted out of her palm, the smoke made a pillar to the sky until it split up into multiple smoke tendrils each aiming for a monster. 

The monsters were numerous so the tendrils had to be as numerous as the monsters. It was a spectacular sight to see, as those smoky tendrils filled the sky above them. A few moments later the curse tendrils started to collide with Drekavaces one by one. After the collision, the smoky tendrils surrounded the bodies of the monsters in all angles and then dissipated leaving some chain marks on the bodies of the monsters.

''That should do it.'' Looking around Aella could bearly see the cursed chain marks on the monsters, but she was sure she got every last one of them.

June looked around the cage and with a nod confirmed that the monsters weren't out damaging the regeneration of this cage, so now they had plenty of time to figure out how to get out of here.