Kazzrak: If you want me to find some fire to stand in, I will. Don’t think I won’t do it.
Ifalna replies by giving Kazzrak a completely deadpan look for a solid thirty seconds before Kazzrak rolls his eyes and chuckles.
“We can talk normally as well till we get closer to the boss or are in combat,” I tell everyone, then turn to Ezekial. “Ezekial, we’ll be ready for whatever you bring us. Just give us a heads-up via chat.”
“Righteo, then.” With that done, Ezekial stealths and walks out the door on the left.
“Let’s move this story along, shall we?” asks Kazzrak as he heads for the door as well.
We file through in our previous formation. Better safe than sorry.
I swear this place is nothing but corridors and doors off to the side. Ezekial checks each room as we pass them but doesn’t find anything of value, really. Sure, there are probably some nooks and crannies that we missed, but we don’t have proper bags, and we left the sheets of loot with the bodies of loot in the cells. I didn’t think there was much point in bringing it, to be frank. We could just come back before we left and loot everything. Ezekial elected to keep the rope that we made, so he looped it over his shoulders in a way that wouldn’t hinder him. Bloody Boy Scout.
Surprisingly enough, we don’t encounter any more enemies as we wander the hallways searching for them. Quite odd, really. Maybe we went the wrong way? I check my mini map and try to piece together how to get to what looks to be an audience chamber. It is the largest room in the place as far as I can tell.
From what I can gather, and I’m probably not the best at directions in the world, but I can usually read a map, we are only three turns from the chamber.
Ezekial: Uh, guys? Hold up there, will ya?
We do as we were requested two more turns from the chamber, although it looks like Ezekial is just outside it, judging from the mini map.
Dosan: What’s up, doc?
Ezekial: Well, I’m seeing what looks to be quite a large hall of some kind. Throne room, audience chamber, that sort of thing, you know? Problem is, well, it’s not empty.
Ifalna: Let me guess. It’s packed to the rafters.
Ezekial: Give a prize to the healer. I’m looking at around three hundred guards just lounging around or chained up to hooks on the stone pillars around the edges of the hall. Most of them look to be sleeping or something. The shitty part is that they are all level 40. Want to know the best part?
Kazzrak: Quit your blathering and get on with it.
Ezekial: There are two people on the stage area. The first one, judging by his robes, is the sorcerer called Lord Varim Meldoto. He is level 51. His literal right-hand man, standing at ten feet tall and built like a brick shit house, is level 50. Unfortunately, his name is also Solos Goldeneye.
Sybaal: Damn. This is going to be a bit of a bitch now. Why did we have to choose this way? Ok, we need to find a choke point. A narrow hallway or doorway that they can’t get past one or two of us beside each other. Higher ground would be preferable, so possibly on stairs?
Kazzrak: I’m looking through the map and I’m seeing a set of winding stairs that goes up to the top of the hall. Looks like it is an entrance to a tower, but there is also platform that opens up onto the rafters. Probably for maintenance if this were a real fortress.
Ezekial: Got it. And yeah, I can see the platform from here. It’s right above the boss. I’ll come back and pick you guys up.
Ezekial made his way back to us rather quickly and scurries off down a different hallway. We follow in the usual formation, but I don’t pay too much attention to the others, as I’m trying to rack my brain for any useful scenario I can come up with to deal with such large numbers.
We arrive at the spiral staircase, which is just wide enough for me to stand shoulder to shoulder with Kazzrak, but we wouldn’t be able to do much swinging without getting in each other’s way.
Sybaal: Ok. I have a semblance of a plan. Not as half-baked as the previous one, as we don’t have that many options in this one.
Ifalna: What have you come up with this time?
Sybaal: Pretty simple. But it’s gonna suck.
I outline my plan with the rest of them before they just shake their heads in mock dismay, and we get to work.
7
Sybaal: Ready player 1?
Dosan: Go.
I stand on a small platform above the boss’s head, overlooking the hundreds of Han’s mutated family. He has one big family, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s a cat thing? Attached to the platform is a myriad of crisscrossing solid wooden beams. They stretch all the way to the other side of the hall.
Ezekial stands crouched on a beam a few sections away from the platform, bow drawn and ready. Kazzrak is standing in the stairwell with his own bow drawn and ready, with Ifalna next to him so he can still see the guards below. Dosan crouches as low as he possibly can on the platform so as not to be seen as much as possible.
Lord Varim Meldoto and Solos Goldeneye are standing next to each other over some foul-smelling concoction in a bubbling cauldron. What is it with evil sorcerers, wizards and witches and their bloody cauldrons?
The mad sorcerer is wearing midnight blue robes and holds a wand in his hand that he is using to magically stir a spoon through the liquid he is brewing. Such a blatant disregard for the use of magic, I say.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly release it along with the shaft in my hands. It flies true and straighter than a heterosexual man in a gay bar, striking the mad sorcerer in his mouth and embedding itself into the back of his throat. The little glass dart that was tied to the arrowhead shattered on impact. His eyes grow as large as saucers and he begins to scramble his fingers at his throat.
See, I’d gone to the trouble of going upstairs and taking a few potshots at a specific piece of stone wall in the top of the tower. Turns out that the bow and arrow system works the same as previously, which is nice. It requires actual skill to use without any auto-assist crap.
I was originally going to get Ezekial to take the shot; however, I realised before it was too late that would have been folly, as I would have wasted a perfect opportunity to test the game limitations and how far I could bend the rules. I didn’t know if it would work out, and if it didn’t, then plan B it was. However, plan A was definitely worth a shot.
When I was sure my aim was good, I used some of the rope to carefully tie the dart with red venom to one of my arrows that I had enchanted with Fire Sword for extra damage and a decent damage-over-time effect.
Ifalna had also cast Mark of Vengeance on the mad sorcerer, increasing all damage done to the target by 25%, just as Dosan replied an affirmative of being ready. I popped all my cool downs, including my racial Heritage, giving me a 525% increase to my damage. Heritage has the added bonus of turning me into a true Dragonkin for a limited time.
The changes were interesting, as very fine scales covered my skin with a reddish tinge, larger horns grew out of my head, and all my claws became larger. A tail cut a hole in my pants on the way out, so it looks like I’m going to need a flap back there. Wings also sprouted out of my back, though I couldn’t use them yet for some reason. Maybe I’m not a high enough level for that skill?
I had known that my own personal damage wouldn’t be all that great when hitting the level 51 Lord Varim. What I was hoping for was that the bonus would be applied to the acid in the dart, as well as Sweeping Strike transferring that exact same damage to Solos.
If it didn’t work out, then I knew the limitations of the acid and the boss, and I was fine with that. Plan B was still there. However, it seems like my plan is starting to pay off, as Lord Varim and Solos are both rolling around on the ground, tearing at their throats, their mouths opening and closing without any sound coming out. I feel bad for putting Han’s son through the amount of pain he must be feeling, but I know that there just isn’t a quick way to kill him.
Dosan uses Acid Spit and hits smack bang into the middle of the bubbling caul
dron, right on target.
Slowly but surely, their health starts trickling down at the same rate. It’s currently headed down past 95%. I’m loath to waste the damage increase of my racial and Ifalna’s cool down. However, judging from the couple of hundred now extremely alert guards coming to see what all the fuss is about, I really don’t want to draw attention to myself quite yet. At least not until something goes wrong. Let’s face it. Something always has to go wrong.
Sybaal: It’s working! Bahaha!
Kazzrak: I honestly didn’t think that would work.
They are rolling around and thrashing so violently that they end up knocking the vile-smelling cauldron all over themselves and four of the guards in the front row. The burning liquid scorches both bosses and the guards; their skin then starts to bubble and blister before eventually sloughing off altogether. The guards’ health plummets to nothing within ten seconds while it increases the rate at which the health drains on the bosses, now sitting on 75%.
Dosan: That idea of spitting into the cauldron was awesome. I don’t know what was in that liquid, but I think it amplified my racial by a lot.
Sybaal: Agreed.
We have to wait for a good twenty minutes before their health hit 15% so Dosan can begin casting Bond on Solos. We had argued for a little while about whether to try to Bond Lord Varim or Solos first, just in case something happened. While he wanted a caster for a bonded, and I saw the benefits of that, I thought it would be better to get a warrior type that might use weapons, just in case he needed his skinny caster ass pulled out of the fire. It also didn’t hurt that he was the son of a quest giver. Surely that would net a pretty sweet reward, right?
During the wait, another two hundred guards of various levels between 20 and 40 stream through the entrance and join the rest of them. These must be the ones that we didn’t take care of throughout the rest of the fortress. Five hundred armoured guards milling around the boss looks very disconcerting, to be frank.
However, we didn’t account for something we probably should have. Firstly, as soon as Dosan casts Bond, every man and his dog, or cat as it were, down there looks up in unison and roars. I tell you what, the acoustics in that hall are amazing, and my teeth are reverberating in my gums, that’s for sure. They take one look at us up here; then all hell breaks loose in the hall, as we had kicked the proverbial anthill and they found out it was us.
Dosan: Aww, hell. Guess it’s gonna get hot in here.
Kazzrak: Plan B time.
Sybaal: Yeah, keep that shield wall up as long as you can.
Dosan: I’m sending Woody to help you hold it, Kazzrak.
Kazzrak: Cheers.
We all start sinking damage into the guards as they flee out of the hall, downing quite a few with targeted fire. Though they aren’t really fleeing, but more like rushing as fast as their pussycat legs will take them right to us.
Dosan’s Reanimated minions have sneakily made their way closer to the middle of the room on the edge and now jump up with their brethren and start picking off the level 40s one by one in the ensuing chaos. They take out four of them before the surrounding guards clue in and end their second life.
The shield wall that we built out of a bunch of swords and shields linked together with our rope is literally a wall of shields with sharp pointy swords sticking out at the enemy like spears. Kazzrak and Woody move a little way down the steps and brace their bodies against the shield wall.
It has its own support structure, which keeps it upright on its own, but it just needs someone to stop it from being pushed backwards by the mob until it runs out of durability.
Hopefully that will take a while.
We are able to take down fifteen guards by the time they all leave the hall, leaving only Lord Varim and Solos. I also noticed that my unobtrusive experience bar down at the bottom of my vision slowly crept up towards the end. Nice.
Funnily enough, when Dosan casts Bond on Solos in his pain-crazed state, he actually starts biting and clawing Lord Varim in a desperate attempt to ward off the spell. This decreases Lord Varim’s health even faster than before, and in 15 seconds the mad sorcerer’s health hits 10%. To be able to reduce the boss’s health by 90% without a single offensive spell being cast is amazing.
The mechanics of the fight has other ideas for the finale. Green lightning flashes randomly around the hall, creating explosions with whatever it touches, including the wooden beam that Ezekial is crouched on.
With a yelp of surprise, Ezekial is thrown off the disintegrated beam and down into the thrashing jaws of Solos below. Ifalna immediately slams a Holy Barrier into place before the jaws are able to get a good grip on his arm. Ezekial isn’t able to get away, as Solos has a death grip around his waist.
The Barrier has its limit though, and in the mere two seconds left till Dosan’s Bond completes, Ezekial screams from the abrupt pain as he is bitten three times in quick succession. Each time takes him into the red with barely any health left, but with the spam healing from Ifalna, he is kept alive and at full health each heal.
When the Bond finally kicks in, Solos freezes completely. His health keeps dropping due to the damage, so Dosan dismisses him, and he disappears in an explosion of light particles.
Ezekial crawls slowly towards the table at the back of the room. He must have popped his racial of Swiftness, as his speed increases dramatically, and when he reaches the shadows under the table, he disappears.
He reappears right next to me, lying on the beam so suddenly I nearly shoot him in the knee with an arrow. Thankfully I jerk my arm at the last moment and miss by a hair’s width. Grabbing him roughly by the front of his leather armour, I jerk him onto the platform before hauling him back into the stairwell. I’d never hear the end of it if I’d actually hit him.
Ghosts of pain are still passing through his memory. Why this game has the pain receptors up to full, I have no idea. Looks like he is only now beginning to come out of the memory. I remember what it was like getting knocked around by Woody, and I have to be honest, if I went down to the red three times in a row… That’s gotta suck.
“You good now, mate?” I ask Ezekial quietly, kneeling down.
His eyes meet mine and I feel kindred understanding pass through them. “Yeah, I’m good now. Felt like my pain receptors were at 100%.”
Ifalna and I pull him to his feet before I reply, “Yeah. First time’s a bitch. Hopefully now we know about it, we won’t be affected as badly with the shock.”
“Let’s try not to get hit so much that my Barrier breaks, okay?” says Ifalna.
We both nod in Ifalna’s direction.
“They’re here!” Kazzrak yells from the stairs as a multitude of thuds hit the wall, followed by squeals of pain and growls of anger.
“Let’s finish this.” I move back onto the platform with Ezekial, and he heads back out to the beams, this time staying close to one of the vertical ones as well.
Lord Varim only has 5% of his health left at this point, and it may not be enough for another Bond from Dosan.
“I have another fifteen seconds before Bond comes off cool down. I think I can make it,” says Dosan, staring intently down at the boss still writhing in pain.
Now that I think about it, if pain is as bad for the NPCs as it is for us, then having your insides turn to acid sludge must really top the list on the pain-o-meter.
Without any warning, I hear an extremely loud piercing roar that sounds like it’s coming from right next to me. Looking over, I find that it is coming from Ezekial, although he doesn’t seem like himself any longer. Instead of a slim Tengu crouching down on the wooden beam, I’m now looking at a rippling muscle-bound bodybuilder of a monstrous Tengu seven feet tall. And he looks really, really pissed off.
What the hell? This shit is crazy!
Immediately after Ezekial finishes belting out his frustration on our eardrums, he leaps down from the beam and lands directly on top of the boss’s back. The claws that tip his enormous hands start shreddi
ng into the back of Lord Varim’s head with a raging abandon. He continues to scream incoherently, as his rage now has an outlet.
Dosan’s eyes widen before he yells, “Don’t kill him, Ezekial! Shit! Bond is still on cool down!”
The boss must have an extremely high amount of health, as even with Ezekial’s frenzied strikes, it is only trickling down a little faster than before.
“Do something, Sybaal!” pleads Dosan as he looks in my direction. “I’ve only just cast Bond, but I think Ezekial will kill him before the thirty seconds are up!”
I watch with trepidation as Lord Varim’s health reaches 1% before I have the chance to jump down. I hesitate as well, because Ezekial has a way to get back up here, but I don’t. So I will be easy pickings for any of the guards if they come back or if setting foot down there may trigger them.
I don’t want to needlessly die just to let Dosan Bond a new minion. I have no idea where I will respawn or what the penalties are if I do. Not to mention I will be putting the rest of the plan in danger.
As if the game senses my thoughts, a troop of literally a hundred guards rushes in from the entrance and heads straight for Ezekial. When they reach the middle of the hall, two things happen at the same time. Firstly, Lord Varim Meldoto stops struggling as he finally dies, the acid having done marvellously, and I’m extremely glad he didn’t have a poison resistance, now that I think about it.
Dream Stream Reality: Publisher's Pack Books 1-2: (A LitRPG Adventure) Page 13