Game Announcer1: And there you have it folks! Five floors in and the first of the monster player bosses makes contact with the raid! Congratulations to the 115,788 of you who placed a bet on the fifth floor being the first player boss, your winnings will be in the game mail.

Game Announcer2: An impressive showing for the monster races. Using superior hit and run tactics, a max level demigod player was able to take down twenty members of a thirty member raid. Who knows how many would have fallen had it not been for a lucky turn at just the right moment?

Game Announcer1: That’s right! Don’t let the level fool you either. A maximum tier monster at max level has the same level cap as the players themselves. Don’t forget the bonuses conferred by their advanced tier, though they are harder to advance the higher you go. For those at home thinking of joining up a monster character, at the highest tier they gain an additional ten points per attribute per level!

Game Announcer2: Exciting news! I’ve just been informed that a new betting pool has opened up for the next ten minutes! Place your bets on how the raid will tackle this new foe! At five hundred to one odds, you are primed to make plenty of money! See your waitress to place your bets, and you won’t even have to leave your ale!

Game Announcer1: We have been informed of an influx of complaints about a raid wipe. Sorry folks, we are going to have to be technical here. A raid wipe is every member of the raid being killed, not having a portion of the raid strategically retreat. For those upset, there hasn’t been a wipe yet so bets on that are still open.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Twenty minutes later, Mr. Whiskers POV

Warning!

Raid leader, one of your members has been dead for ten minutes and will respawn at the beginning of the dungeon. You have twenty minutes to get there and revive them before additional penalties are incurred.

Current penalties: -17% defense

Current boosts: +25% defense

Effective result: +8% defense

“Welcome back Ice Queen. How are you feeling?”

“Huh? Oh god, that, that THING!”

“It’s ok. We know. Judging by the level, it’s probably one of the players.” I tried calming her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “What did it do?”

“Brushed a claw through my hair.” She shuddered, grabbing my arm.

“Psychotic bastard.” I growled. “Luckily for us, we don’t need to save the forest this time, do we? CINDERFY!”

“Yes?”

“I need someone to burn a forest to the ground. Are you the man I need?”

“SIR, HELL YEAH!” He shouted, and turned to start heading down into the dungeon immediately.

“Hold on a second, we need one last roll call.” I chuckled darkly. They wanted to hunt us in the forest? Stealth won’t do you shit when there isn’t a forest to hide in.

Half an hour later we were back at the fifth floor. “Alright Cinder, this is your time to shine.”

“Breath of Salamander, eternal flame. Take the form of thy greatest enemy, and lay waste to the world. Burn the trees to ash, the ash to dust, and the dust until nothing remains. Spread ruin and damnation, turn the countryside to wasteland. [Azureflame Tsunami]!” With a swing of his arm in an arc in front of him, a small blue arc of flame rapidly expanded into a towering inferno of flame, rushing forward to eagerly consume everything in its path. Thanks to Lucy’s warning, I had made sure that Cinder was outside of where that invisible wall was before launching his attack.

“While we wait for Cinder’s attack to level the field, we need to talk about deaths. We are going through resurrection scrolls at a prodigious rate and our supplies are limited. From now on, we need to have our healers bringing people back. That is going to limit us to eight resurrections every ten minutes. Lucy, you’ve been great as a second so far. I’m putting you in charge of deaths. Healers, listen to Lucy. She’ll call out who resurrects who, and make sure that we don’t have anyone else getting sent back to the beginning. This will become incredibly important the farther we go. I have a feeling there’s going to be a player boss every five levels, and that sending a healer back to revive a lost body is going to take almost the entire twenty minutes. We have almost lost all of Gaia’s blessing because of deaths, any more and we’ll be toast.”

“How many scrolls do we have left?” Grandelf asked.

“Not nearly as much as I wanted. Originally we compromised on three per person, which would put us at 90. King, Citadel and I each brought an extra ten. Out of our original 120 scrolls, we have 80 left.”

“Seriously? We’ve lost a third of them?” Several people expressed a lot of concern, especially considering that without our extra thirty scrolls, we would be hurting pretty badly.

“That said, here’s our battle plan. I’ll stealth and hamstring the boss, I want the tanks to surround and keep it contained. Ranged attack focus on damage, Brosef you’re going to be the major dealer. Don’t worry about aggro generation, if I’m right and this is a player aggro won’t matter.” Once we had the plan set, it took another ten minutes for the fires to die don enough that we could advance. Ice Queen and the three sages worked together to carve a corridor through the remnants, the ground shattering as they blasted their way forward with water and ice. Just as I hoped, the clearing that Ice Queen had inadvertently found was right in the middle of the dead forest, and the enemy was standing in the clearing, snarling at the flames.

“[Binding vines].” Several of the druids took the lead as Dave charged forward while I made my way towards the back.

“I’ll get you this time beast!” Dave taunted as the beast shredded the vines.

“[Hamstring].” I slashed through the back of the beast’s legs, crippling its movement as it howled in rage. I barely managed to dodge a series of blows, just as the tanks arrived and started locking down the boss’ movement range with their shields.

“[Light arrow].” Brosef targeted the back of one of the knees, causing it to buckle and let the tanks get some blows in of their own. The sages and other mages started attacks of their own, and the health bar was slowly lowering. That’s when the first wrench was thrown into our plans.

Black lines erupted beneath the boss and the tanks, covering all of them with a light sheen. “It’s a weaken armor curse!” Dave yelled to the healers. While the tanks were taking more damage from attacks, the creature started to make an opening.

“[Pinning arrow].” Shocker fired into the gap, piercing the boss’ foot and eliciting a howl of rage. Nearly doubling its attack speed, the boss redoubled its efforts to drive apart the tanks.

“Switch out.” Shieldwall replaced Dave, taking over while the other guardians lingered, ready to replace a tank at a moment’s notice. Lady Fisticuffs was having fun circling the boss and jabbing her spear between tanks, trying to interrupt its attacks. A flash of black out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I backed away to see what was going on.

Odd. Curse circles keep appearing behind the raid. Close enough to catch a few people in the grasp, but far enough back that nobody who wasn’t paying attention would catch it. Was it the boss? Occasionally curses would center on the boss, but these are far too precisely targeted. The boss focused on melee attacks. Staring at it, I finally caught what had been bugging me the entire fight. The curses were healing the boss! There had to be something else in this battle.

Can’t be behind the raid somewhere, the forest ground was still incredibly hot except where the raid cut through. Anything in stealth would have lost it long ago. There was nothing in the clearing, which left the cave. Before heading in there, I needed backup. “Cinder, need you and the sages for a second.” I said as I moved over their direction. “Can all of you combine into a massive, concentrated fire attack?”

“What are you thinking?” Cinder asked.

“I think there’s a helper hiding in the cave, and I’m going to draw him out so you can blast him.”

“You have any flame control spells?” SpiceMix asked, looking at Cinder.

“Yeah, why?”

“Cast it, and we will all add azure flames to your spell.”

Eyes growing wide, Cinder got a manic grin. “Oh, I have just the thing. Go ahead Whiskers, we got your back.”

Letting them hash out their plan, I moved to where I was hidden from the cave mouth and activated stealth. Moving slowly, I slid into the cave as the raid continued to wear down the boss. It was slow going with the stealth healing. Twenty minutes of battle had only dropped the boss to 60% health, and the monkey looking monster standing in front of me was likely the culprit.

Simian King

Demigod level 130

One of the terminal evolutions of bugbears, simian kings combine magic with the physical might of their lower evolution to devastating effect. Beware the prehensile tail, as it is often an unexpected source of strategic attacks.

Thankful I had silent casting, I activated one of my more powerful skills, [Assassin’s edge]. It had a four-hour cooldown, but it tripled my attack before stealth bonuses. [Heartseeker][Bloodletting] both activated as I plunged a dagger into the monster’s heart, savagely twisting it as I jerked it out to create as massive of a wound as possible.

“GAH!” The creature cried out as it stumbled, slashing randomly at me with its tail to keep me back.

“[Storm of blades].” Floating blades appeared, spinning in place shredded the musculature of the tail, causing it to drop the blade.

“[Curse of weakness].” It tried to target me, but I blinked behind the monsters back.

“[Garrote].” Silenced, and partially slung over my shoulder, I marched it out of the cave and flung it to the ground. “CINDERFY! SPECIAL DELIVERY!” I yelled out, noticing the three sages were standing in a triangle formation with Cinder in the middle.

“Azure flames become the heart. Call to order your nearest kin. Rending talons, piercing fangs. Let them tremble before the beast of legend. [Azureflame dragon]!” A massive ball of blue flames formed above his head as he chanted, fed by streamers of blue flames from the sages. At the name of his skill, a massive dragon head formed. Streamers of flames gave it whiskers, and it had a distinctly oriental feel to the head. It rose for a second, before diving to skim the ground and pass slightly above the main boss, claws slashing both shoulders in passing before it opened its mouth and slammed through the simian king and into the ground around it. The length of the dragon sucked into itself, forming a massive egg of flame before exploding, forcing me to take several steps backward from the intense heat.

“Hey Shield, rock and a hard place while it’s distracted?” GotYerBack shouted, and my stomach sank.

“You got it bud!” Before I could stop it, they had started. “Unstoppable momentum, force unending. Reduce mountains to plains, smashing through anything in your way. [Juggernaut drive]!”

‘[Roots of the mountain]!”

“Don’t!” I was far too late. Juggernaut drive. A skill that lets you plow through nearly anything in your path. Roots of the mountain. A skill that negates all knockback. Guilds had used that combination for a while against smaller, more problematic bosses. It required a third tank to hold aggro as the other two clashed from the side, but it could do massive damage.

The boss’ grin reminded me that we weren’t dealing with an ordinary boss. As the red glow enveloped GotYerBack, he lowered his shoulder and charged toward the glowing yellow Shieldwall. Bending down, the boss easily leapt over Back’s head, flipping around and immediately charging towards the healers.

“[Savage mauling].”

“[Intercept][Retribution strike].” Citadel stepped in front of the boss, taking its attack and returning the damage blocked to force it back a few steps. Just as they were about to continue, a bright light was rapidly growing.

The raid and bosses all turned to see red and gold lightning encasing GotYerBack and Shieldwall, as a growing ball of energy formed between them.

BOOM!

With an incredible explosion, the two guardians were thrown from each other. GotYerBack smashed into Blackthumb, carrying both of them into the blazing oven that was the rest of the forest we had burned down. Shieldwall got lucky and smashed into the simian king, carrying it into the inferno. We heard agonized wails from both sides before they were cut off.

“Jjjjooooohhhhhnnnnnyyyy!” The boss cried out, and the black stripes on it expanded until the entire creature was a thing of jet black. The individual hairs reflected the dull orange glow surrounding us, contrasting with the bright red eyes of the boss. “WWHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!” It let out a long, mournful howl as three summoning circles appeared around it. What appeared were three dogs that looked like a Doberman on steroids. Easily the size of a great dane, they had two odd spikes coming out of their necks in an X shape, and they almost looked like they were made of semi-rigid rubber.

Flayhounds

Level 200

Flayhounds are a magic evolution of hound that has been bred for powerful jaws in an agile body. Fast and vicious, they would be dangerous if that were their only weapons. Their namesake, however, was earned by the spines on their necks. They contain a magical hook that latches on to any exposed flesh as they pass their prey, tearing a strip away as they go. As an added bonus, the wound will continue to bleed for five minutes.

Crap. I looked around to see who we still had left. “Dave on the boss. King, Death, Shocker keep it pinned as long as possible. Gold, Smiter, HitMe, all of you pick up one of the dogs. Druids, I want the main boss and Dave stuck in a hedge maze! Ice Queen, I want you and SpiceMix to escort Jess to find Shieldwall’s body and bring him back. Grandelf and Peppermint, find the other idiot in the flames and have Diver bring him and Blackthumb back. Everyone else, stay alive and concentrate damage on the dog that HitMe is holding. Bandaid, keep Dave alive. HealYaButt, focus on HitMe but keep the other two alive as well. Hopefully their paladin heals and yours will be enough.”

People started breaking away as soon as they got their orders, and the raid started pulling out unexpected tricks that I hadn’t anticipated. SirMixALalalot started turning binding vines to stone, further slowing the boss down. “I’ve only got six of these potions, and they’ll last for a minute each.” He shouted to Dave.

“[Stone grasp].” Brock waited for the hound attacking HitMe to get him down to about half health before binding it. “Take a step back and heal, this’ll hold for five seconds.” He shouted.

“[Cage of light].” Brosef did his part in binding up some of the flayhounds, helping the other tanks pull them away from groups and separating the dogs. Despite the shift in circumstances, we managed to weather the change without too much issue. Dave was having a hell of a time against the boss, those black claws seemed to shred right through armor.

“I’m losing aggro!” HitMe yelled, as the hound turned towards the healers and started straight for them.

“[Pepper bomb].” With a flick of a wrist, MixALalalot tossed out a vial that burst into a red cloud against the dog’s nose. Wimpering, the dog hunkered down and started sneezing in a desperate attempt to wipe the concentrated pepper from its nose.

“[Ice prison].” Just in time, Ice Queen returned with Shieldwall and SpiceMix. “Do you need them all slowed? Our tanks will slow down as well.”

“Let’s hold off until we are down to the boss.” I answered. “Unless you have one that is focused on the boss itself.”

“Sorry, most of mine are area effects.” She shrugged, before pointing at the imprisoned hound and spearing it from above with a massive icicle. That was enough to kill it, freeing up the raid considerably. The two free tanks went to help their fellow guardians, while Jess came up to me.

“Guardians or Dave?”

“Dave.”

“K.” Turning, she moved over to Bandaid and started talking, working her own healing into the rotation that was barely keeping Dave alive.

“I’m losing aggro!”

“Me too!” Goldguard and Smiter’s targets had both dropped into critical, something I should have noticed.

“Bind them, slow them down. At critical health they target the healers!” I called out, dashing as fast as I could across the clearing.

“[Pinning shot].” Calm as can be, King and Shocker each pinned a dog, allowing the rest of the raid to pile on the damage fast enough to kill them.

“Boss is raging again!” Jess shouted, and we all saw Dave fall under the brutal onslaught of swings. “I’m sorry, it just happened so fast.” Jess was jabbering, as the boss leapt over the wall of hedges with little effort. Luckily HitMe and Shieldwall were nearby, taking defensive positions in front of the two healers.

“Tanks, get to surrounding the boss. Where’s our other healers?”

“Sorry, just made it back.” HolyDungeonDiver was panting as they entered the clearing. “Almost missed bringing back Blackthumb because of the cooldown.”

“I don’t trust the boss, make sure the healers aren’t bunched up.” I said, watching as the tanks slowly closed in. It was still hovering around half life, plenty of time for it to cause mischief. Looking over our raid, we were in good shape. Everyone was back up to near full health. The three paladins were nearing the boss in a triangle, with guardians filling the gaps. Berserkers were nearby, ready to pile on physical damage. Jess and Bandaid had two guardians by them, as added protection. HealYaButt was off by King and Shocker, a good enough gap between them and the rest of the healers that the boss shouldn’t be able to cross the distance in one leap. It was grinning though.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRR!!!!” Panic! That roar. It spoke to the primal part of everyone’s brains. The part that still insisted we were monkeys, and something bigger and stronger was stalking us. If you didn’t move, it might not see you. For three seconds, the entire raid was frozen. The boss slipped out of the trap with ease, heading toward the cluster of mages and druids. A group with no tank, and only one healer. Just before arriving, the arms swelled to bear sized proportions, while the claws started dripping with poison. Like a living blender, the boss slashed and spun through the group, shredding leather armor and robes like tissue paper. Some were lucky enough to only get blasted by the arms, sending them flying with long gashes from claws through their bodies.

“Bind it somehow!” I shouted as soon as I was free, closing the gap as fast as I could. With contemptuous ease, it swatted the pinning arrows that the snipers were shooting. “[Crippling blow].” I slashed through the back of the leg, only to have the boss turn to me and smash me with an overhanded hammer blow. Stunned, I couldn’t do anything as a claw reached forward and slit my throat.

You have died.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

RaiderDave’s POV

I saw Whiskers go down, and knew we were in trouble. “Box it in! Healers, start getting everyone back on their feet. Let the poisoned ones slowly die. Prioritize any tanks within range for heals. Get Diver back up in the first round of revives, but let us get the boss away first.” I tried to do the mental math on the revives, but doing that and pinning down this elusive boss was beyond me.

“King! Figure out if we can get everyone back up with healer revives only. It’s your call if we need to use scrolls.” This boss was way too smart. It went after the group with the weakest defenses, ignoring the tanks with all their taunts and the aggro the healers had to have generated.

“Get Ice Queen back up, we need her.” I shouted, smashing toward the boss with my shield. To my surprise, I was sent stumbling backward as it overpowered my attack with a simple backhand. “Watch it, it’s a lot stronger than before!” I warned, rather shocked at the raw power.

“Queen’s back!” Someone shouted thirty seconds later.

“Queen! I need you to use your area effect spell! Slow this sonofabitch down!” I yelled over my shoulder, knowing the boss would understand. It had to be a player. Way too smart not to be.

“It’ll mana lock me for the duration!”

“I don’t care! Just get it done! HItMe, bodyguard Ice Queen.” I ordered. “Anyone who can bless an elemental or ice resist, set about boosting the raid.”

“Howling north wind, heed my prayer. Bring with you the killing cold. Freeze their limbs. Freeze their tears. Freeze their blood. Freeze their bones. Freeze all that dares your wrath, leaving white oblivion in your wake. [Arctic gale].”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Mr. Whisker’s POV

Crimson King is attempting to revive you.

Revive? Y/N

I came to only to find the raid in a world of snow. Mist surrounded the clearing as the cold air fought with the remaining heat of the fire. Raider Dave and the boss both had frost covering parts of their bodies, and were moving much slower than before.

“Had to use three scrolls to get everyone up. Boss is too fast, Dave called for area suppression. Tanks and boss are slowed, ranged are still ok. Ice Queen is mana locked for the duration of the spell, but she says she can keep it centered on the boss.”

“Alright, are we recovered then?” I asked.

“Back to normal. Healers are sucking down mana potions as fast as they can though.” King cautioned. Damn, at this rate supplies are going to be a major issue.

“Tanks! Rotate in and out with guardians! Four in at a time. Keep the boss pinned. Healers, if a tank isn’t in against the boss they can use potions to recover, focus on those in combat only to save mana. Mages and druids, you’re going to be our damage dealers. Avoid using fire attacks if possible.” I hated coming off condescending like that, giving orders that everyone should know, but at this point I wasn’t chancing it. The boss was down to a third of its life, and I was dreading what tricks it might still have.

We settled into a routine, slowly wearing down the creature. Thirty percent. Twenty-five percent. Twenty percent health and still no tricks. I was incredibly worried. There had to be some ability coming up, and by now the majority of the boss’ fur was covered in frost.

“ROOOOAAAARRRRR!” This was it. It wasn’t the stunning roar from before, but it did sound vaguely bearlike. Incredibly bear like. The boss’ body was morphing to match its arms. Shorter snout, wider body and thicker fur. It dropped to all fours, crushing Shieldwall beneath its bulk. It rumbled forward, only to find Lady Fisticuffs harassing its snout with her spear as EricDaRad started carving at its shoulder with his axes.

“Come on ya beastie! Daddy needs a new coat!” Eric shouted, glowing red with some sort of skill.

“Berserkers, your time to shine!” I shouted. “Get in there and cut it up!” I called out, before blinking onto the creature’s back. I sunk my daggers in, but it barely noticed. “Piercing attacks! It’s got a layer of fat protecting it!” I shouted out, blinking away. “Mages, feel free to rain hell from above.”

The raid buckled down and started pouring on the damage. Each back leg had a berserker carving into it with abandon, blood flowing freely now that Ice Queen had let her spell drop. Between the magic attacks from above, the physical attacks from the sides and Brock smashing earth projectiles up into the boss’ stomach, it was only the work of ten minutes to wear down the final portion of the boss’ life. Brock was also alert enough to use a wave of earth to bring Shieldwall’s body to the side so the healers could resurrect him.

First boss defeated!

Congratulations on beating the first of the player bosses! In addition to the rewards for this battle, the new respawn point for bodies recovered in the dungeon will be at the entrance to the stairs leading to the next level.

“WE DID IT!” While everyone was celebrating, I flopped onto the ground and relaxed.

“Fun.” King said, sitting down next to me.

“Fun? Yeah, I suppose. A lot of crazy skills.” I pointed out. “Didn’t expect it to go after the mage group.”

“Unexpected.” He agreed. “Makes it fun. Interesting. Different.”

“Battle junkie.”

“Yup.” He agreed with a chuckle.

“Tanks, how’s the durability on your armor?” I called out to nobody in particular.

“Down about half.” Dave said as he sat down. “Ignore part of armor in attacking, claws do extra damage. Glad we went heavy on the heavy armor, or we might have lost some equipment in this battle.”

“Seriously?” I asked, rather shocked. “Damn. And it’s only going to get worse from here. I don’t suppose you guys thought to bring extra armor sets?”

“Nope. Too easy to have someone try and lift it from your inventory. All the good stuff is either in use or locked in a vault.”

“Damn. Why do I have the sinking feeling that this will be an issue?”

“Because you can read the writing on the wall? Hopefully we can get something for the heavy armor sets. At least we have the leather armor set.”

“Not worried about cloth?”

“Eh, if they are losing durability then we haven’t been doing our job properly. Can we get twenty minutes to repair armor and weapons?”

“Definitely. I’ll send you the list of loot from the boss.” I said, groaning as I got to my feet. “Half hour break for equipment repair!” I called out. Walking away from the chaos, I knelt down by the bear of a boss and looted it.

Loot table

Simian King

Chimera Lord

Staff of the Monkey King (legendary)

Prehensile tail ring (unique)

Monkey King’s Loincloth (legendary)

20x vial of Chimera venom

Fanged daggers of the Chimera Lord (legendary)

Helm of the Chimera Lord (legendary)

20x vial of Chimera Lord blood

Beast King’s necklace (Unique)