by Oliver Mayes
Aetherius chose that moment to start screaming at his colleagues.
“Don’t let him make a pattern! If he goes through the portals five times he’ll get stronger! Fire! FIRE!”
Bartholomew uncrossed his hands, each of them holding a Chaotic Bolt, before flinging them one after the other toward the group without changing course. The designated tank darted sideways to intercept, shield raised. The two projectiles broke against it one after the other, the resulting explosions pushing him back but inflicting minimal damage.
Damien was disappointed. He’d expected something more impressive given Bartholomew’s earlier showmanship. One of the priests channeled a heal as the rest of the group spread out to get line of sight.
Bartholomew was faster, launching another Chaotic Bolt at the paladin, the barest flicker of a contemptuous smile flickering over his features. The paladin confidently raised his shield.
“Dodge it, dodge it you moron!” Aetherius screamed.
The paladin did not dodge it. He took it squarely on his shield again. A prominent symbol lit up over his head, indicating the successful application of a dangerous stacking ability. This one was called ‘Unstable Energy’ and it had three charges out of three. The paladin looked down, his pride turning to alarm, just in time to watch himself explode.
He seamlessly switched roles from party tank to party decor, spreading himself across the front line of their horror-stricken forces in dashing shades of red. Bartholomew himself floated through the portal on the opposite side of the arena, humming with disconcerting glee.
The only signs he’d been there were the towering wall of flames cutting a trail from one portal to the other and the paladin’s thoroughly redistributed remains. The flame wall had separated Damien’s base from the rest of the party, which would have been wonderful if not for the fact Lillian had been stranded on the other side as well.
Bart emerged from another portal, Chaotic Bolts charging in his hands. The Rising Tide party was directly in his path. They scattered every which way out of their tight-knit bundle, each determined to evade the instant death magic being pelted at them.
Aetherius remained exactly where he was. His hands glowed red for the span of a second before the Arcane Beam seared out of them toward his foe. It was a direct hit, but he did not maintain the beam for long. While Bartholomew reeled, Aetherius blinked to the larger portion of the dungeon and turned, folding his arms and tapping his foot at the other players. They hurried to join him before Bartholomew could recover.
There were still thirteen members of Rising Tide fighting the good fight. Bartholomew was a beast, that much was certain, but he was only level 35. Elite boss mob aside, all the players were higher level than him, more than capable of dealing with him if they worked as a team, and they had all the components required: two priests and a paladin with dedicated healing, a paladin and two warriors as tanks, a warrior, an assassin and two rangers for physical damage, and three mages, including Aetherius himself.
As Bartholomew resumed his advance, the ranged units unloaded into his back, with the exception of Aetherius who was too busy tapping his foot to participate.
By the time Bartholomew cleared the floor, gnashing his teeth with every impact, he’d been reduced to 18,000 hit points out of 30,000. Aetherius abruptly stopped foot tapping and started barking orders, jabbing his fingers around him authoritatively. The paladin tank stayed by his side, operating as his personal bodyguard.
“The boss has a pattern. It’ll come out of the first portal it escaped through, going into this one behind us. You two tanks block its path. Everyone else spread out. Priests, DISPEL first, help Judgementday heal when you’re done, and don’t let it through! If you see Daemien, shout. I’ll kill him myself.”
Damien edged a little further away from the portal Bartholomew was apparently going to pass through next and which Aetherius had sent the two tanks to guard. They’d almost reached it when Bartholomew burst forth from the opposite side of the dungeon and started hurling Chaotic Bolts. The entire party was ready and waiting, descending on him in full force.
Damien’s imps were flying in over the walls of flame. Bartholomew couldn’t handle this by himself. Damien was going to have to do something drastic. He knew his target priority. It couldn’t have been more obvious from the instructions Aetherius had been so kind to deliver at full volume.
The first imp arrived behind a priest in the middle of channeling Dispel. Damien Demon Gated and was stabbing him before his feet even touched the ground. A sneak critical and three more strikes brought him to a swift end. His Rift Walker trait triggered, resetting the cooldown on Demon Gate. As long as Damien targeted people he could bring down quickly, his mobility would remain almost limitless.
The assassin heard the priest’s death rattle and turned to watch Damien withdraw his daggers.
“It’s Daemien! He’s over th—”
He’d taken his eyes off the imp, who was now swooping in behind him. Damien Demon Gated before the imp was in position, hurtling through the air as he and his winged ally swapped momentum. Where once this had been a disadvantage, now he was prepared. He extended his Sacrificial Dagger in front of him and his body weight drove it through the back of the assassin’s neck, literally cutting off his yell.
Damien didn’t withdraw the dagger this time, holding his enemy in place on the ground as he thrust Shankyou’s infamous weapon into his back again and again. The assassin died soon enough, but he’d alerted Aetherius to his location. Aetherius turned from Bartholomew, his hands switching from blue to red.
Damien teleported across the dungeon just in time, the Arcane Beam searing through the assassin’s body and destroying the imp that had taken Damien’s place. Only two imps left, plus the two wraiths.
Yet his moment of surprise was gone. The party knew he was in there with them. Before Damien could drop into stealth and move away, they picked him out in the light of Bart’s portal. Whoops.
The mages were the fastest to react, turning the Lightning Bolt and Arcane Beam they’d been preparing to hit Bartholomew with onto him. Damien ran with Noigel flying out in front of him, feeling the heat of the spells scorch past and then the flames of Bartholomew’s deadly trail behind as his mentor passed through the same portal that had exposed him. Thanks to Damien’s distraction, the latest wall of flames had split Aetherius’s forces in half, but that still left Damien with five angry players to avoid.
He came to the next flame wall and skidded to a halt, not rating his chances of passing through without being burned to a crisp. Demon Gate was still on cooldown and the damage-dealing warrior was rapidly closing in, not giving him time to wait. That only left one way out.
He sent Noigel to hover above the flame wall, took three steps back and used the last of his stamina to leap up as high as he could. As Damien entered the very edge of the effect radius, he Imploded Noigel.
He’d never been subjected to one of his own Implosions before. It was every bit as unpleasant as it looked. It grabbed him by the shoulders and sent him spiraling through the air head first, cartwheeling him over the hungry flames to land in an undignified heap on the other side. The fall hurt a little, but he was alive. Damien lay down on the floor, panting as his stamina replenished, thinking the danger past.
He thought wrong. There was a yell from the other side of the flames and the warrior tore straight through, looking around to find Damien close by and well illuminated by his own burning body. He charged in to finish him off with no regard for his own rapidly diminishing health, yelling in triumph as he raised his claymore to bring it down on his drained, defenseless foe.
He never saw Lillian coming.
While his sword was still scything down, she collided with him at full tilt, her shield braced in front of her. It smashed into his torso and punted him back through the flames from which he’d emerged. Lillian seized Damien by the scruff of his neck and dragged him away from the flame wall.
Damien didn’t understand.
Lillian shouldn’t have been there; they were still separated from his base entrance by the first wall of flames. When she released him, he turned to look at her and his eyes widened. Her health was at barely a third and her armor was black and charred. She’d walked through the hellfire to stand at his side.
Ignoring her own wounds, she started channeling her heal on him, only to be interrupted when a bolt of jagged lightning scorched her back. The lightning mage had left the rest of the group to pursue Damien, riding his nimbus high above.
The mage was channeling another spell when a Chaotic Bolt from Bart slammed into his back. Blasted off his cloud, the mage tumbled head over heels toward his targets. Lillian was quick to capitalize, Divine Might activating as her hammer materialized in her grasp. The mage landed at her feet and her hammer blurred through his head, cratering the ground beneath it with a low boom that fittingly sounded like distant thunder.
Damien resummoned Noigel and immediately sent the imp upward, out of the flames and into the dark, before directing him toward the sixth platform across from them. He needed to get out of here. Lillian was healing herself, but she wasn’t specced for it and her health was dangerously low. Defending him had brought her to her limit.
She was still at less than half health when someone Blinked through the flames and set his haughty gaze upon them, his face contorting with glee. His Mana Wisp floated over the wall and came to rest behind his shoulder.
Aetherius had come to finish them off personally.
His hands glowed red and Lillian leapt in front of Damien, her shield hastily equipped and glowing to repel the attack. Aetherius threw his hands out to his sides, canceling the beam before it had even begun, and then brought them together again. This time they glowed blue. His smile twisted further as he savored his victory, before he leveled his full power to fire off Arcane Bolts that spiraled towards them from every direction. They did not travel in a straight line. He was trying to hit Damien directly.
Lillian would not have it. Confronted by the man who’d caused her so much grief, her thin veil of calm, tenuous at the best of times, completely evaporated. Damien couldn’t see her face from behind, but the scream of rage alone was enough to chill him to the bone.
She planted her feet, Divine Might coursing through her veins, and her sword arm became the conduit for all her expertise, willpower and hate. Damien couldn’t even follow her movements. All he could see were the explosions as she sliced the tip of her blade through one projectile after the other at arm’s length, a string of unending blows so fast and accurate it would bring shame to the mightiest of warriors.
It looked like she was going to win. Until her sword snapped in half and the tip clattered to the floor, unable to sustain the stress of her unorthodox methods any longer.
There wasn’t enough time to recalibrate. She swept the broken blade short of the next two missiles and missed both, taking the hits on either side of her body before she could raise her shield. The rest of them pounded into it, inflicting grievous wounds despite being blocked.
At last, with her health at less than 100, the barrage ceased. Aetherius was out of mana. He looked distressed for just a moment, his chest heaving up and down, but he quickly drew himself up and feigned a confident grin. As if he’d always been certain that this would be the outcome.
“You should’ve known better than to use your sword like that. Only a noob would make such a rookie mistake. Give up.”
And then his face took on that bored air as he folded his arms and tapped his foot against the stone.
Lillian was a mess. Her face was battered and bruised, her armor was charred and dented, and both her shield and her sword had become useless hunks of twisted metal. Even so, she remained defiant until the end. She turned sidelong to Damien and spoke to him out of the corner of her mouth.
“It’s up to you now. I’ll cover your escape. Kill this asshole.”
She put the shield and sword away and started running toward Aetherius, the hammer materializing in her grasp. Damien tore his eyes away and focused on the sixth platform where Noigel had just arrived. He Demon Gated and turned in one swift motion to look out over the dungeon floor.
Lillian leapt into the air, the ground cracking under the force of her anger, and swept her hammer around and behind her with a blood-curdling scream that made everyone freeze.
Aetherius was still tapping his foot, not even looking at her. At the peak of Lillian’s jump, he blurred around the edges and phased out of existence. A fraction of a second later he reappeared off to one side, his hands glowing red. The same ability combination he’d used to cripple the dragon. He caught her perfectly with the Arcane Beam. Lillian the Immortal was dead before she hit the wall.
Damien had never felt so alone. Or so powerless. If it had just been Lillian against Aetherius, he had no doubt who would have won. Instead, she’d put all her faith in him, wasted all her efforts on keeping him alive, and he’d been able to do absolutely nothing to help.
This was all wrong. He didn’t deserve to be saved.
His self-pity was brought to an abrupt end as Aetherius let out an enraged scream of his own, stamping his feet. He’d realized Damien had escaped. Even Noigel had been left with enough time to make his getaway, landing on Damien’s shoulder without incident.
Aetherius held a hand out to the side and a half-drunk mana potion materialized within it, which he drained in a few seconds before returning to his impotent tantrum. Damien’s jaw dropped. Aetherius was using mana potions to support his abilities. His mana was far from limitless. And the mana potion he’d been drinking had only been half full.
Damien put the pieces together. Whatever illusionary trick Aetherius used, he did it to drink mana potions without being seen. Lillian’s attack had forced him to break the illusion to strike her in the air before she destroyed his copy. That explained why he was always folding his arms and tapping his feet in combat; it was a fake, just like him. He’d been using consumable items to supplement his skills. He had low wisdom. He was a min-maxer.
Still, that didn’t explain everything. The forums online had often stated that Aetherius couldn’t be using mana potions, on or off camera. The reason was simple: he had no backpack, no inventory from which to draw consumable items. Yet Damien had just watched him drink a mana potion right in front of his eyes. He had to have an inventory somewhere. Was it invisible? Did he have an ability to conjure potions out of thin air?
There was a low rumble, followed by a long, heinous laugh that turned Damien’s attention away. Bartholomew had passed through the last of his five portals. The fires on the ground had seemed like a typical boss fight hazard, but from his vantage point Damien suddenly realized it was a much more intricate set-up.
The five lines of flames on the ground had turned Bartholomew’s dungeon floor into an enormous pentagram. It looked just like the sigil Damien used to summon imps, only many times bigger. A new portal appeared at the center and Bartholomew floated out of it with almost 3000 health remaining, badly wounded but still very much undead. His hands swept above his head and pulsed with the deepest, darkest magic.
Damien’s mentor was protected by the towering flames on all sides. There was no one to stop him. He smashed his open palms against the floor and was engulfed in black flames. The pentagram diminished to nothing and suddenly the floor was open again, allowing the surviving party members to regroup while Bartholomew underwent a terrible transformation.
Great, twisting ridged horns erupted from his head. A pair of hideous, taloned wings sprouted from his back, snapping and creaking as he stretched them out to either side. His robes tore away and his body expanded, rippling with muscles. The purple sigils that had adorned his robes emblazoned themselves on his pale white skin, glowing in the darkness. The black flames extinguished as his transformation came to an end. He was comfortably twice as large as the incubus had been. As boss mechanics went, Bartholomew had just enraged.
Only six of Aetherius’s party were l
eft and Bart was stronger than ever. This was now an entirely different fight.
Bartholomew swept his wings against the ground and went straight for the nearest tank, the warrior. For something so large, the vampire was incredibly fast. The warrior had no time to raise his shield, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. Bart’s closed fist was larger than the warrior himself. He was blown to smithereens. The rest of the group opened fire and Bartholomew’s wings folded over himself for protection, absorbing the brunt of the attacks. He was going down, but slowly considering the power being leveled at him. He needed help.
Damien still had his two wraiths. He sent one into the fray, preying on the priest at the fringe of the party. It did some serious damage before Judgementday turned his Smite from Bart onto the wraith instead. The paladin's high intelligence stat coupled with the innate light of the spell killed it instantly.
While they were distracted by the wraith on one side and Bart on the other, Damien directed his second-to-last imp over the holy magic wielding players, hovering it in the sweet spot before he Imploded it. It caught both the priest and the offending paladin in its grip. They collided in mid-air, and then Bartholomew’s huge palms whirled around from either side. They were pulverized in the middle with an earsplitting clap, as if they’d been no more than mosquitoes. Only three Rising Tide players remained.
Their final tank, Aetherius’s paladin bodyguard, performed about as well as his predecessor. Bartholomew raised his foot and leaned in to put all his weight behind it, then brought it crashing down with full force. Two to go.
Damien held his breath, waiting for Bart to engage Aetherius. If Aetherius Blinked away when he attacked, Damien could track his movement and intercept while Blink was on cooldown. A fine plan, with one small flaw. Aetherius’s foot was tapping, and he looked bored.
Aetherius blurred at the edges and faded away. Reappearing directly underneath Bart’s body, he pressed his pulsing red hands together and fired on Damien’s master at point blank range. The beam carved a hole through the occultist leader and out the other side. With a last gasp, Bartholomew fell to the ground and disintegrated, leaving no trace except for a huge loot bag. The fight was over.