by K R Dimmick
I’d thought we’d succeeded, until I looked around in horror to find the elf who’d had his foot turned to stone step into the snake’s mouth.
“No! Port him, Damir!” I yelled.
It was too late. By the time Damir turned to look, the basilisk had shut its mouth with a sickening crunch. I wanted to throw up, but someone grabbed me and pushed me behind the closest stone wall. Just in time, too, since the snake decided to add an extra pink light attack on top of its compulsion.
We renewed our attacks with an intensity that made up for our missing team member. It was completely quiet, with no one seeming to want to break the eerie silence that had descended. Our time became a dance of attack, Dodge and hide as the basilisk performed its turn to stone attack for every 5% its health dropped. The only thing that struck me as odd was that, except for the large attacks, it didn’t seem to do much damage. Other than a few scrapes, as the healer, I didn’t have much to do now that everyone had worked out the pattern for the fight.
I was keeping an eye on health bars, but also found my mind wandering to the words at the entrance and wondering what they could mean.
Finally, we hit 50%.
Surely all snakes were our allies, weren’t they? I mean, they were all beautiful and like us were simply trying to survive. I could trust them. Wait. I shook my head and thanked the gods once again for my high level of Fortitude.
I lunged for the person closest to me and thumped them with my staff, knocking them out of their trance. This time, however, there was no need to explain and the elf ran off to help the person on their other side.
Instead of simply working my way around the room, I also decided to do things differently. I sprinted toward Damir, thinking that if I released him first, if we didn’t make it again, then he could at least port whoever was still in danger.
I thumped him solidly, but not as hard as Mikael had the previous time. He came out of his stupor, shook his head and nodded his thanks. As I turned to run to the next person, Damir simply solved our problem and cast a shield over the basilisk’s mouth. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Now no one could get in, so we had time. Although, I had no idea when the pink light attack would trigger, so on second thought, I’d still better be fast.
Running across the room, I headed for the King. None of the elves seemed to be overly keen to hit their liege, whereas I had no such qualms. This was the person I needed to keep alive even more than myself. I swung my staff at the King’s head, knocking him out of the compulsion. Thanking me, he turned to the elf next to him.
There aren’t many times in your life that you can thump someone across the head, especially royalty, only to have them turn around and thank you. I started laughing about how surreal it all was.
Between us, we saved everyone in time and were all hunkered down behind the stone walls, waiting for the pink light attack we all thought would come next.
Of course, this was a boss fight. When do they ever happen exactly like you’d expect?
43
Snake Charmer
A few minutes later, we were all still hiding behind the stone walls, and the pink light attack still hadn’t happened. I decided I was the best person to stick my head out and find out what was going on.
“I’m going to risk a look. If it doesn’t work, wait until I come back before you try anything,” I yelled as I stuck my head out from behind the wall.
There, in the middle of the floor, sat the basilisk, seemingly waiting for us to restart the fight. It was rather odd, and my gut was screaming at me that this had to be some kind of a trap, because bosses didn’t just sit there, waiting for you.
I took a step out from behind the wall, motioning for everyone else to stay where they were.
The second my foot came out from behind the pillar, the stone statue that I’d completely forgotten about started to glow. I stopped, trying to decide whether I should go back behind the wall or not.
All of a sudden, the stone on the statue started to crack and fall away.
“What’s happening?” yelled King Faelyn.
“I don’t know,” I shouted back. “It seems the statue is breaking for some reason.”
Before he could ask anything else, several screams and shouts erupted from around the room.
I turned to look back, only to freeze in shock
There must have been well over a hundred rattlesnakes slithering out of the nooks and crannies in the outer wall and heading toward the center of the room. I looked down as one of them slithered between my legs, hissing at me. Before I had a chance to move or try to kill it, though, it simply kept going, heading toward the Basilisk.
For some reason, the phrase from the entrance popped into my mind. Don’t tread on your ally. I wondered if these were our allies.
“Hold your fire!” I yelled, hearing people preparing to kill the rattlesnakes. “There’s no way we can kill this many, and they don’t seem to be against us. My guess is they are the allies the entrance text told us about.”
Clearly, most of the others hadn’t read the text, but the King managed to enforce the peace treaty.
I watched the rattlesnakes all reach the basilisk, their hooded heads raised. As one, much to my astonishment, they attacked the basilisk, and with a lot more success than we’d been having.
I was so engrossed in watching the unexpected slaughter that I’d forgotten about the statue. Suddenly, and before I could throw myself behind one of the walls, a golden light flashed throughout the room.
The statue had now completely transformed into a woman with long, dark hair and a bright red dress. She was holding two stone rattlesnakes in her hands and the golden light was pouring out of her.
“You have passed the tests of observation and cooperation,” she intoned as a few heads poked out from behind various stone walls.
“You noticed the warning on the entrance, and you avoided killing your allies. Had you missed either of these, you would now all be dead. Instead, you have earned the right to face the final boss by going through the test of persistence.”
Wait. What? The basilisk wasn’t the boss? Well, I guess that explained why it didn’t have a name.
“I am Angitia, Goddess of Healing. If you survive this fight, I will grant your leader the answer to one question.”
I hurriedly Inspected her while I had the chance, wondering why a healing goddess would be in a dungeon boss room. What I saw made my heart sink.
Angitia - 100
Abruptly, the light became blindingly intense and I was forced to cover my eyes. As soon as I could see again, I looked back to find the basilisk lying dead on the floor, surrounded by rattlesnake skins.
Heavy footsteps could be heard coming through the tunnel on the other side of the room.
Why were the rattlesnake skins strewn all over the floor? It was going to be so slippery if we tried to fight anything and probably too time consuming to get them out of the way. This did not look good.
“Prepare to attack,” yelled the King.
I quickly cast Minimizer on everyone, putting my doubts aside. Grabbing another Star Orange Cupcake and a piece of Chicken Mushroom from my inventory, I ate them quickly, renewing my +10 Wisdom and +7 Toughness buffs so they didn’t run out during the fight. I could see others drinking stamina potions to get themselves back to a decent place to start a boss fight.
My worst nightmare came out of the tunnel. A gorgon. I Inspected her quickly to see what we were facing.
Sethno - 25
Well, at least she was at a level we stood a chance of defeating. Her hands had huge, bronze claws instead of nails and she had a loose piece of sackcloth covering her eyes. Poking out from around the blindfold, I could see the snakes that served as her hair, waving back and forth, hissing at us. The snakes were bright red, making her look like her head was on fire.
I wracked my brain, trying to remember everything I’d read about myths as a child. What did I know about gorgons? The only thing I could remember was that if you
gazed into their eyes, you’d turn to stone.
We needed something to cover our eyes that we could see through. Suddenly, it hit me. Our allies from the last round were still helping us.
“Grab a rattlesnake skin and tie it over your eyes,” I called out, running forward to grab the nearest one. “It will be thin enough to see through, but should stop her turning you to stone.”
Chaos erupted as everyone raced out from behind the walls to grab a skin and get it over their eyes in time.
With a screech that sounded almost like a harpy’s, Sethno ripped off her blindfold and stared at Angitia. Instead of turning to stone like I’d expected, she developed a red glow.
Sethno swiped her claws at the closest elf. Thankfully, he managed to get out of the way in time and his snakeskin blindfold held.
We started attacking Sethno with everything we had. Arrows rained down, lightning flew out of Damir’s hands, and the sword wielding hunters swiped and thrust at the gorgon. Her health slowly but surely dropped as I ran in and out, healing and buffing as needed.
Finally, her health reached 76%. A quick glance around the room showed me everyone was as nervous as I was to see what big attack was about to descend on us.
“Stay near the walls, let the archers take the last percent,” the King commanded.
We all ran back to take cover behind the small walls just in case.
A single Snipe from the King took Sethno down to 75% health. Everyone waited. A single golden light flashed through the room. I poked my head back out of my hiding place and swore.
Sethno was back up to 100% health.
“She’s healed,” I shouted.
Everyone piled back out from behind the safety of the walls, and once again, we worked on taking her health down.
Since nothing bad had seemed to happen at 75%, I decided to stay out in the room to see what happened. I tried hitting the gorgon with another Fireball, but found she was also resistant to fire.
Slowly, we whittled the boss’s health down to 76%. Everyone else ran behind the walls, and a single Rain of Arrows from somewhere behind me took her health down to 75%.
I watched Angitia lift up her right hand and cast what looked distinctly like Wound Seal on the damaged gorgon, causing Sethno’s health to climb back up to 100%. I suppose I should have listened better, I thought bitterly.
“The woman is healing Sethno.” I shouted. “She did say she was the goddess of healing, after all. We’ve got to work out how to stop that happening and then we should be able to get the boss’s health down.”
Another frustrating ten minutes was spent getting Sethno back down to 76% health. This time though, instead of hiding, everyone advanced on Angitia. One Snipe took Sethno to 75% but before the ex-statue could cast her healing spell, nine elf hunters descended on her.
All of a sudden, the two stone snakes she was holding came to life. She threw them on the floor and they rapidly multiplied until about fifty snakes were circling her feet, hissing and lunging at the hunters.
“Retreat,” King Faelyn yelled.
With a smile, Angitia simply cast her heal on Sethno again, and we were once more left with a boss at 100% health. No wonder this was called the test of persistence. It was insane. However, if there was one thing I’d learned from the dice games I’d grown up on, it was that if there was a challenge, there was always a solution. We just had to find it.
The elves once again started attacking to get her health back down. I, instead, tried to think of alternatives, since doing the same thing repeatedly would only produce the same result.
Keeping an eye on everyone’s health bars, I ran over to the King.
“How about we split our forces once we reach 75%. Two hunters try to distract Angitia, while everyone else hits Sethno with the biggest attacks they have and we get her health down as fast as we can. Maybe the spell won’t heal the boss all the way up, or maybe she can only cast a heal at 75%, and once Sethno reaches 70% or something, she’s missed her chance?” I suggested. “What do you think?”
“It’s worth a try,” said the rather frustrated looking King Faelyn.
He quickly organized the hunters to carry out my idea, and when we reduced Sethno to 76%, the two highest level sword wielding elves split off to head toward Angitia. She didn’t look remotely concerned, even when one of the elves disappeared behind her. That didn’t fill me with much confidence, but hopefully, it would work.
At 75%, everyone hit Sethno with their biggest attacks for as long as they could, getting her down to 70%, while the two hunters desperately tried to distract Angitia.
In the end, her snakes drove them away, and she calmly cast her heal, bringing Sethno back up to 100%.
“Arrrgh. There has to be a way to do this,” I complained. I’d come this far, I was not going to let some puzzle beat me, because that’s all this was. A puzzle. Okay, I thought, if we can’t out DPS (damage per second) the healing, we had to prevent it from happening, instead. Clearly, attacking Angitia isn’t working, she had skills I only wish I had as a healer, but that was a totally different matter. Focus, I thought. We can’t attack her, we can’t distract her, so what can we do?
A light went off in my head, and I sprinted over to Damir to tell him my idea while the elves once again started working on bringing Sethno’s health down.
At 76%, with everyone in place, a single Snipe once again brought Sethno down to 75%. I could have sworn I saw a sneer cross Angitia’s face, but it was gone before I could look back.
“Now,” I yelled to Damir.
Just as Angitia finished the hand gestures to cast Wound Seal, Damir threw a shield tightly over Sethno, causing the heal to fail. The look of surprise on Angitia’s face was almost comical. I was banking on her having a cooldown feature for her skills that only allowed her to heal the gorgon every 25%.
“Hit the boss with everything you have,” I yelled, and the elves attacked Sethno with renewed focus, rapidly bringing her health down.
Sethno’s health reached 50%. I could see a slightly concerned look on Angitia’s face. It was like we were playing chicken. Who would start casting first and would we get our shield in place before she could heal the gorgon?
The elves carried on attacking the boss as fast as they could while Damir and I stood ready to respond.
All of a sudden, Angitia cast a different healing skill, a look of triumph crossing her face as it hit the gorgon before I could tell Damir to put up a shield. Thankfully, this one, however, was a lot less effective and Sethno’s health only increased to 55%.
She looked at me smugly as she tried to hide her casting of Wound Seal behind her back.
“Now,” yelled Mikael, who I’d positioned behind her after explaining what to look for.
A shield sprung into place around the gorgon again and the heal missed a second time.
“Arrrgh,” screamed Angitia.
Finally, we were getting somewhere, I thought. This last time, however, was going to be the hardest, because she’d anticipate Mikael as well now.
Sethno’s health plummeted down to 25% under the attacks of the tired looking elves. We just had to outsmart her once more, I thought. Stay with it.
A look of determination crossed Angitia’s face as the side of her lip briefly rose up. She started the hand gestures, but something didn’t quite look right. I was unsure. Was this a slightly different heal I didn’t know? I faltered. She glanced at me with a look of contempt.
“Now,” yelled Mikael. Damir responded and a shield flew into place.
No heal attempt followed. She started laughing at having fooled us.
Just as Damir’s shield started to disintegrate, she started smiling while casting Wound Seal for real. She knew Damir’s skill was now on cooldown and wouldn’t be ready in time to stop her.
I panicked. Inspiration struck, and I grabbed a potion out of my inventory and threw it with every bit of Strength I had.
I could see Angitia’s eyes tracking the bottle as it fell
at her feet. A laugh escaped her lips as she got close to finishing her cast, thinking she’d won. The bottle exploded, and all she had time for was to look surprised for a fraction of a second before she was encased in a block of ice.
“Yes! Two minutes until that wears off,” I yelled. Everyone attacked Sethno as hard as they could. By the time the ice wore off, the gorgon was at 5% health.
Angitia looked like she wanted to kill me. Clearly, she didn’t get frozen into a block of ice every day. A stone snake landed at my feet and I ran, casting Healing Mist as fast as I could.
“Focus on Sethno,” I shouted as I sprinted away from the group with an ever-growing number of snakes slithering and hissing behind me.
“2% left,” shouted Mikael, trying to encourage me to outrun them.
My legs were starting to feel like lead as my stamina bar approached empty.
I grabbed an SP potion and downed it as fast as I could.
“1%.”
With renewed energy, I ran back toward the center of the room as I watched everyone attack the gorgon.
Finally, with yet another screech, Sethno collapsed to the floor, dead.
As one, we turned to Angitia, however, the red glow Sethno had caused around her disappeared and she left combat mode, the name above her head turning green once more.
She started clapping.
We all looked at each other, wondering if this was yet another trick.
“Congratulations, you have passed the test of persistence.”
44
Flashing Red Dots
A flash of blue light bathed the room. Before I could duck, a notification popped into my vision.
Congratulations! You are now level 10.
You have 5 unassigned stat points to use.
You have also gained 5 HP, 5 MP and 5 SP.