Down the stairs they entered a small room and then a narrow corridor. The sounds of a skirmish from up ahead reached them shortly, and the trio rushed forward.

Strangely, the skirmish turned out to be something entirely unexpected. Dozens of skeletal drudges were moving in a series of lines, and each of them seemed fully intent on performing similar movements.

"Left, left, roll to the left..." called out a large skeletal drudge while an even larger one beat upon a drum nearby. The drudges stepped sideways to the left several times then rocked their bodies up onto one foot with the other drawn up slightly. They followed the musical cues and rolled back to their normal position then started stepping to the right.

Well beyond them, at the far side of the cavern, sat a massive drudge. It wore a horned helmet and wielded a spear while it laughed gregariously at the antics of its subordinates. Nearby, in a cage, sat a huddled figure with her head down.

"That's my daughter," exclaimed Etragar.

All movement stopped in the room. The drudges slowly turned their heads in one synchronized movement and stared at the invading trio.

"Yah..." mumbled Scott.

Briefly, the world slowed to a stop as Scott received a message. The side mission to locate and rescue Luau' Ra had been updated. The timer had stopped and now he needed to fight off the wave of incoming monsters.

"S-sorry, but it's my daughter," replied the fat Kaiso as the world began to move again.

The fairy rolled her eyes then pointed to the horde. "Seems like a problem is coming our way."

Of course, the fairy refused to do anything about it. Instead she flew upwards and sat on an overhanging rock well out of the reach of any stabby little spears.

Scott shrugged and pulled out his bow. It seemed a good time to practice!

"Bring me their hearts and livers!" called out the dungeon boss. He never bothered to get out of his massive chair, but he did thrust his spear forward.

"Meat! Gyahahaha!" cried dozens of skeletal drudges before they rushed forward.

Scott backed toward the corridor behind them to limit their numbers and began firing off rapid fire arrows. His shots went wild, and flew all over the place. Thankfully, there were enough drudges in front of him that most shots hit something useful, even if they went nowhere near their mark.

"My prince! There are so many! There have to be nearly a hundred of them here," cried Etragar.

"Feyah!" exclaimed Scott. It came off as somewhat heroic in the fish man's ears. It was too bad, that he did not realize what his supposed hero prince had actually said. It would have soured his image quite a bit if the fat old Kaiso had learned that his prince had literally told him to help out or fuck off.

The bow proved to be potent, but not nearly strong enough in rapid fire mode. It took three shots to take down a single drudge when used in rapid fire mode. A second stage shot would do it with two shots, while a full charge was an instant kill if it manage to hit somewhere important like their chest.

Even so, the drudges were not particularly fast and Scott was able to rain dozens of shots upon the massed horde before they pushed the duo back to the stairs.

Their numbers had only been thinned slightly, but it did not matter much. Scott had discovered the power of his bow. Once he had the capacity to upgrade it, he would do so. It would be the perfect little ranged weapon in a place like Fear rune, or even on other adventures in Ha' Ruul. At the moment, however, the damage was weak in comparison to even his old unlimited ammo pistol. Only the third stage shot did more damage. Though, he did like that the bow itself was an unlimited ammunition weapon.

He stored his bow and drew out his sword. "Yaht!"

"We need to go get help, my prince!" cried Etragar. "There are far too many even for you to overcome."

Scott flashed him a cheeky smile then rushed in to fight the oncoming horde. So what if there could easily be a hundred of them even after he whittled down their numbers? He faced thousands regularly in the zombie world and these were only a little stronger than an ordinary zombie.

Rusty spear heads shot forward in a bid to skewer him, only for Scott to do something utterly ridiculous. He stood there and took them all head on without even bothering to try and defend himself.

The skeletal drudges stopped dead in their tracks when their spears slapped against his armor and even skidded off the side of his face.

There was no sign of damage at all after the attack. The drudges in the back kept pressing forward and even called out to see what was wrong. The ones in front, however, suddenly took on a comical appearance as their eyeless eye sockets widened in surprise.

Scott unleashed a feral grin that showed far too many teeth. "Feyaht!" he cried before he rushed into the horde. A combination of hit points and his defensive gear made such low-end enemies a joke and he wanted them to know it.

"He's a monster! Gyahaha!" cried a drudge just before it was torn apart with a single swing of his sword.

The drudges began to fall back in surprise as the blue haired monster punched, kicked, head-butted, and occasionally even slashed with his sword. Nearly every strike completely wrecked one of the drudges, and they knew in their souls the true hatred that could only be earned by a MMORPG monster when an elite player went to a noob area to slay them for shits and giggles.

"He's a bloody beast, he is!" cried a drudge after Scott kicked him in the chest and sent him flying back into the back.

Scott grinned again. They had no idea.

"Bastard's too handsome to hit so hard!" called another one before its head was torn from its shoulder.

The critter's skull managed to call out, "I'm starting to fall for him!" before it went still and stayed silent.

"Does he have a sister? Gyahaha!" called out a drudge that soon lost its life via spinning back fist to the face. Its skull cracked like a walnut and it fell to the ground.

Etragar watched in muted awe as his pet project designed to trick his daughter turned out to be an impossible hero out of legend. Who could fight off such an army of these beasts? Perhaps the Hero of Ha' Ruul could do it, but there should be no such person alive anywhere else!

The drudges struggled with all their might, laughing all the while, but it proved to be a slaughter of epic proportions. Bones and grinning skulls lined the corridor. They never fled the battle, however. One could say many things about their manners and constant laughter, but they were not cowards.

Scott Knocked the head off of the last of the incoming horde with a single punch to the face then strode forward into the room. The girl in the cage had not moved at all during that entire fight scene. However, the same could not be said about the boss.

"Alright... It seems I will have an interesting day, after all," remarked the boss. He bellowed out a loud, "Gyahaha!" as a bright red flame appeared inside his eye sockets.

The best leapt forward, easily clearing half the distance in then room. There area, and his bones, were rattled as he plunged to the ground with his spear pointed down.

It was one of those types of boss fights, considered Scott. He grinned lightly and switched out his sword for his bow. Such bosses usually liked to jump around a lot, and that would leave them vulnerable. The best tactics in such encounters were to either rush in and stay right up the boss' butt-crack in the hope that he would have no way to push him back to stabbing range, or to stay at range and bait the creature into jumping at him, In theory, the latter option would lead to the boss wasting precious seconds on its attack animation. Would it hold up similarly in real life? He couldn't wait to find out.