Brakhin was a soldier of the hive, a bombardier beetle from the caste that guards the gates of the bunker. Bombardiers do not think, they shoot: the Queen speaks, and boiling acid flies at anything that comes too close. A soldier has no name of his own, only the smell of the hive

One day a caravan of refugees came to the gates, and Selma with the Lantern came with them. The Queen ordered them burned. And then, for the first time, Brakhin heard a voice in his head that was not hers. The voice said “no”. Brakhin turned his sprayer on his own and held the gates until the caravan had passed. His own hive burned him for it, and his light went into the Lantern

He chose his name only as an afterglow, the first of all those who heard a voice of their own. The hive still smells him in the glass of the Lantern and hates him

Out of habit he says “we” and corrects himself to “I”. He is literal and disciplined like a soldier, and when he is nervous he clicks his mandibles. He keeps asking everyone what it is like when the only voice in your head is your own. He respects Unarion most of all, since he too once said “no” to a single will. Varga sneezes at his smell and stands next to him anyway, and he gives Zarna a wide berth: everything living in the hive flew to the light and burned, and he still feels drawn to her

Abilities by rank

Trait

Caustic Acid

Every hit strips 1 armor off the target for 5 s, up to 6 stacks. Brakhin's target soon turns soft for the whole squad

Awakening at level 100: once the target carries all 6 stacks, each of his hits also splashes acid on the enemies next to it, one stack each

Ability 1 · mana 70, starts with 0

Boiling Burst

Brakhin pumps his pump and within half a second fires five globs of boiling acid at his target. Each one deals physical damage and strips 1 armor. It is a channel: a Stun, Silence or a knockback cuts the burst short

Rank	From level	Damage of each glob, % of attack
I	1	50
II	20	65
III	40	80
IV	60	90
V	80	100

Ability 2 · when Brakhin is hit up close, at most once every 6 s, opens at level 30

Defensive Spray

Brakhin whirls around sharply and douses everything around him with boiling acid, like a real bombardier beetle. Enemies on the neighboring cells take magic damage and are thrown back a cell, and a pool of acid spreads and boils around him

Rank	From level	Magic damage
I	30	85
II	55	135
III	80	280

Stars make him stronger on top of the ranks: attributes ×1.4 at ★2 and ×1.9 at ★3, the damage of Defensive Spray ×1.25 and ×1.6, and Boiling Burst grows with his attack

Look

a big beetle as tall as a man, standing upright: a wide top on long beetle legs with hooked claws, and four arms

a reddish orange head and front of the back, like a real bombardier's, amber eyes, heavy mandibles, and everything else in black lacquered chitin with a bronze sheen

short gnawed stumps instead of wings: that is what the hive does to everyone born with wings

a big abdomen, where the chamber in which the acid boils glows orange through thin chitin

his upper arms hold the copper pipe of an old greenhouse sprayer, muzzle down, his lower arms grip the handle of a big crosswise pump cylinder, and a hose runs in a loop from the pump to his abdomen

mismatched pauldrons of chewed paper, layered like the walls of a wasp nest: the left one bigger and several layers thick

How to play

Put him in the back row behind sturdy fighters. Boiling Burst puts all 6 stacks of acid on the target within half a second, and after that everyone hits it, Varga and Marta most of all. Defensive Spray throws back assassins who leaped all the way to him

Silence and Stun that cut the burst short work well against him, and so do enemies with huge armor that outlast even six stacks. He is fragile, only 424 health

Brakhin