Four more clearings containing werewolf bandits were cleared out rather easily, all except for the last of the batch at least. Instead of the normal six or seven mobs, the latest batch we had just dispatched had nine enemies to deal with at once. Things had gotten a bit crazy during that fight, our timing and precision with so many mobs to juggle being subpar for a first attempt with such a large group. Five of the nine bandits managed to transform during the fight, making our battle stretch out longer as their health all refilled back to full and pretty much resetting all of the work we had put into the fight to that point.

We had succeeded and vanquished the werewolves in the end, minus a couple health potions and a lot of swearing, and were now walking along the path towards our next battle. Well past the half hour mark at this point, I was losing hope of clearing the instance faster than any of the other groups had. Even if we came upon the final boss of the instance next, it would be a hard press to finish the battle before the forty-minute threshold. Despite that, I was sitting at a total of over twenty-three thousand experience from just this run before any modifiers were added in. The first clear boost was really giving an edge on the exp gain at least, even if we had yet to find much in the way of good gear or items from any of the normal mobs or their tents.

Kayla and I had been walking along with Archie scouting the way ahead as usual when his voice seemed to be speaking from right next to me thanks to the party chat feature. “Uhm, guys… We have a problem here I think. I found the next clearing and you both really need to see this.”

“What’s the problem? More centaur mobs?” Kayla sounded a bit worried that might be the case, she had taken a good beating from that battle even if she had gotten a nice new weapon out of the experience. Pain was mild in the game, but still more than present.

I waited for a moment in silence, nothing coming over the chat line for a long enough time that I was just about to speak when I heard his reply. “No, there is nothing here. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing. No mobs, no path forward, not a damn thing! Just get up here and see for yourselves…”

Sharing a look between each other, we shrugged in confusion and picked up the pace to catch up with Archie. The path was twisted and confusing to map, but with the only way forward being set by the trail it was impossible to get lost at least. Finally making the last bend, I saw Archie seated on the ground and staring at the empty clearing intently, as if he could see something else just by staring.

The clearing ahead contained all of what Archie had described, at least that we could see. There had to be something here in this area, some kind of trap or hidden boss somewhere. I couldn’t believe that the devs would leave one of these clearing completely empty with nowhere to go after it.

“You don’t think we missed a branching path, do you?” I posed my question to our scout, Archie having traveled ahead of us on his way down the trail. If anyone should have spotted a branching path it was him.

“No, I made sure to check too… Never know where we can find extra loot.” He shook his head, eyes still locked on the empty area just ahead of us. “It has to be a trap of some kind, but I can’t see…” He trailed off, his mouth hanging open mid-sentence as if an idea hit him. “I am going to try something. Not sure if it will work, but what the hell. Not like we will learn anything just sitting here.” He paused for a moment, then flung out a hand. The area in the center of the circular glade seemed to brighten a bit, his skill to call down a pillar of moonlight working even in the daylight. The only downside was that nothing at all happened.

I frowned and shook my head. “Worth a shot I suppose, but I think we are at the point where we just walk in and see what springs up. I am assuming this is the final boss, so it is just a matter of being ready for anything.” I glanced at the others and raised a brow. “I could always just walk in and when something happens I can use my Temporal Step spell to gtfo.”

The others looked at me, then each nodded with Kayla being the one to speak up in ascent. “That seems like the best plan, honestly. We haven’t tried to leave one of these clearings during combat yet, but I didn’t see any kind of walls or shields keeping us in at the previous areas. Worst case scenario Zex and I can jump in and try to take on whatever pops up.”

“Right then.” I stood back up from my crouch and checked the timer on the poison coating my scythe to make sure there was plenty of time left. “Wish me luck. Hopefully I don’t die… That would really suck after all of this work.” Archie clapped me on the back and gave me a shove forward, the bastard having a wide grin on his face since he wasn’t the Guinea pig being sent in as bait. I swear, sometimes I really hated my friends…

I walked forward carefully, keeping my steps steady and short in case I had to turn and flee at a moment’s notice. With no idea of what was going to happen, I sure as hell didn’t want to get caught with my pants down. As soon as I made it to the middle of the clearing I stopped and held my scythe up, ready for something to happen. Ten seconds went by without a stir in the clearing, then a rustle of motion in the trees drew my attention. Straining my eyes to try and pierce the dense foliage, I caught the first glimpse of what we were going to have to face.

Heavy steps sounded from the woods accompanied by the breaking of branches as a massive twelve foot tall monstrosity of fur, teeth and claws emerged into the open area. Labeled as Werewolf Alpha, the boss was covered in rippling muscle with extra long arms that nearly dragged against the ground. Red eyes that glowed even in the bright sunlight focused on me, causing my feet to take an involuntary step back. The creature was the stuff of nightmares with its extended jaws dripping saliva and hate filled glare that promised a slow and painful death.

“Level 15 with what looks like a shitload of health, I can’t really help with plans without more information…” Archie’s voice filtered in to me from the party chat, breaking me out of the shocked state I was in. Despite knowing this was merely a game, I had been taken by surprise at the realistic sight of such a menacing creature radiating power.

I shook my head, clearing the last vestiges of my stupor off without taking my eyes off of the boss monster. “Alright, looks like there are no traps and we just had to draw the boss out. Come on up guys and let’s drop this thing like yesterday’s news.” I got two verbal confirmations before I heard my friends leaving the wood line in order to join me. All the while the boss stood there with intelligence flashing in those red eyes, waiting for me to make the first move.

Kayla drew up even beside me, her shield up and ready. “Should we start this off like tank and spank? We have to begin somewhere, and until we find out what this thing can do we should stick with the usual methods I think.”

“Yeah, that seems like the best plan. I am going to attack, but will be holding back a little to make sure I catch whatever surprises this bastard has in store for us. You go in and grab its attention while Zex and I deal some damage to the thing from the sides and back.” I glanced around quickly, my eyes scanning the woods all around us. “Keep your eyes peeled though, if you see anything strange from the boss or our surroundings call it out.”

As soon as my words faded, we started the fight in earnest. Kayla leaned forward and dashed ahead, the Alpha growling loudly and launching itself forward remarkably fast in order to meet the sprinting woman. The long arms of the werewolf rose up in preparation to swing at Kayla with the full force of its charge, but I wasn’t going to let that happen if I could help it. For the first time since I got the spell, now seemed like the prime opportunity to make use of it. I lifted a hand and cast Demi Speed on the boss just before it met Kayla, the monster slowing to half speed for just long enough to allow our tank to avoid the heavy swing of those insanely long arms.

With a yell of battle lust, Archie and I converged on the Alpha’s back and began our work of laying into the boss after Kayla got in a few swings to keep it focused on her. Playing the tank in this game was awkward without an actual taunt ability, but Kayla had mentioned she had a skill that gave her actions increased aggro on enemies around her to make up for that fact. In the end, it didn’t take more than a couple seconds for her to establish enough of an aggro level to allow us DPS to do our job. Not that we were doing a hell of a lot to the boss… Every hit was only shaving off a sliver of health from the gigantic werewolf, and after my slowing spell wore off the boss was dealing heavy blows in rapid succession to Kayla.

I watched the attacks of the boss carefully, measuring its patterns and styles as it wailed on our tank who had taken up a full defensive position to reduce the incoming damage. “Serena, time to change it up. The left arm is fast and weak while the right is slow and powerful. Keep your shield in line with the left one and try to use your axe to parry the right arm for return damage. Aim for the knuckles and claws to try and take the hand apart.” Really, this worked out well since she was wielding her shield in her right hand which aligned it with the Alpha’s left perfectly.

“Got it, will give it a go!” Her actions reflected her words as she altered her stance slightly to allow her shield to catch all of the left handed blows easier and used her axe to attack the right hand as it slashed down at her. The tactic worked to a degree, with her still taking a bit of damage from the right hand blow but also dealing a nasty wound to the clawed hand at the same time.

10% of the boss’s HP had fallen away after an exchange of blows, all of us still taking the fight slowly and waiting for the first ability of the boss to trigger. As soon as the HP ticked down to 89%, the beast took in a deep breath and gave a loud howl up into the air. The noise was so loud that we all faltered a moment, taken off guard by the deafening cry from the Alpha. With the howl fading away, Kayla shook her head and got back into her stance in time to catch the next blow on her shield and resume her routine.

From the forest came a single answering howl, the sound of a werewolf running through the brush quickly closing in on the clearing we were fighting in. From the side burst a level 12 werewolf covered in black fur that kept running right at us. “Zex, break away with me and let’s take out this add. Serena, stay on the boss and keep it occupied.”

Archie turned with me and followed to intercept the new addition to the fight. While running at the weaker wolf, I spun my scythe around to add in more momentum and twisted my whole body into a slash with all the power I could muster into the mob’s reverse jointed knee. A sickening tearing sound met the blade of my weapon as I got a massive crit, the fact that the mob was charging at me while I ran at it having added more damage into the attack and allowing my scythe to cleave straight through the joint.

I wasn’t the only one in action here though, and as the werewolf stumbled to the ground, minus one leg from the knee down, Archie had leapt high into the air to bring a fist down hard into the back of the werewolf’s head with a loud crack. Instantly, between our two attacks, the mob was down to 60% HP and now had three debuffs next to its health bar, crippled, stunned and poisoned. Luck must have been on our side with that little fight and we managed to finish the add off quickly before it managed to put up any semblance of a counter attack.

“Good job. Back on the boss and let’s whittle it down some more.” I glanced at my UI, checking all of the bars representing our health, mana and energy to ensure we were on par for the course. All in all, we were still looking good. That was until the Alpha reared both arms back at once and slashed them forward quickly to knock Kayla backwards with a powerful double attack. Shit… The Alpha readied another standard attack on the prone tank which would add to the decent 20% chunk of damage she had taken from the one blow.

The next set of attacks couldn’t be allowed to land on Kayla if we wanted to survive the rest of this fight… I triggered Temporal Step, using the short period of frozen time to run in front of the boss so I could intercept the attacks before they reached Kayla. When the spell ended, I quickly felt two strikes against my readied scythe that still managed to deal damage to me even through the block.

“Alright, switch back.” Those words through the party chat were what I was waiting for, a glance at my UI showing Kayla’s health rising back up from a potion she drank as she stood up. I skipped giving an answer, instead diving into a roll under the next attack that headed my way and avoiding the blow as best as I could. Archie had ignored Kayla and myself, having seen that I was handling the situation, and instead focused back on delivering thundering punches to the exposed back of the Alpha Werewolf and shaving off ever more health from the massive bar over its head.

My energy levels were still around 70% or so, but we were barely into the fight as a whole so I popped one of my energy potions to fill ack up and let the cooldown tick away. By the time I would possibly need to use another, enough time should have passed to let me do so. Then I too was back in action swinging at the boss with my continuous pattern of attacks, lifesteal filling my HP back up steadily without having to drink a health potion of my own. Thankfully, my poison had taken on the boss before we broke off to deal with the add, and we were quickly nearing the 80% mark in the fight already.

Like before, as soon as the HP bar dipped to 79% another howl echoed out from the boss. This time, we were ready for it and managed to attack some more through the distraction to shave away some more of the boss’s life. Zex pinged the mini map, indicating that the add was coming from his direction this time, and the two of us rushed ahead to meet the threat. Since Archie was in the lead this time, he pulled the tripping maneuver and performed a slide tackle to take the werewolf down in a tumble of flailing limbs. Following up right behind him, I gripped my scythe like an axe and raised it over my head to chop down with the blade into the monster’s back.

Apparently, the creature didn’t like that as a roar of pain and anger filled the air, the muscled body pushing up to try and regain his feet. Archie had other plans for the thing though, and he quickly kicked out the arms attempting to push its bulk back up from the ground while I kept up a steady whirl of damage into the prone beast.

Just before I finished the add off, Archie turned and called over to Kayla in a calm and steady voice. “Serena, get ready to jump back if it does that big attack again!” His words proved true when as soon as I finished off the smaller werewolf, the Alpha reared back to do his wombo-combo once again. Thanks to the warning, Kayla managed to avoid the attack and then stepped smoothly back in to swipe her axe across the massive werewolf’s muzzle. The unfortunate part of that action became clear a moment later when her attack dropped the health bar to 75%...

With a snarl of anger and frustration, a new buff icon appeared above the red HP bar over the Alpha’s head with a ten second timer. While we couldn’t focus on it quick enough to read a description, the effects were obvious as the boss began to slash incredibly fast with its claws and leaving glowing red trails behind them. It went into a temporary fury stage at this point, and the damage Kayla was taking began to add up quickly. I flung out a hand as fast as I could and cast Demi Speed on it once more, thankful that I had been preserving my mana so far in the fight and not using it on True Haste thus far.

Seeing that the boss had slowed down, Kayla leapt backwards and ran away a short bit. Standing in range of a boss in fury was never a sound strategy and she knew it. My spell had only lasted for a couple seconds, but that time was enough to allow Kayla to get out of range for the remainder of the buff timer as well as chug yet another health potion. She still had plenty of mana, but no need to put extra stress on that supply when we still had another 75% HP to deal with.

From that point on, it became a rinse and repeat battle with another add every 10% and another fury buff at the 50% and 25% marks which was all easily handled now that we knew the fight mechanics. The only hard part we encountered was the last 10% of the boss’s HP. When it went critical, the Alpha got a soft enrage buff that increased the damage it dealt by 25% which turned the last bit of the combat into a race as we made sure Kayla survived by dealing as much damage as possible to finish the large creature off.

Archie was the one who got the killing blow, launching himself up into the air with a flourish to slam his fist into the base of the Alpha’s neck. The resulting snap of bones coinciding with the depletion of the last of the HP made us all cheer in glee that the battle was finally over. While it wasn’t that tough of a fight in the end, having to do all of it ourselves was mentally exhausting when the battle stretched out over the full five minutes it took to take the Alpha down. In spite of that, I was feeling that wave of excitement that I always got when coming across an entirely new encounter and then surpassing the obstacle with victory. There really was no other feeling like that, in my opinion.

Checking our inventory to see what kind of loot we had gotten, I quickly noticed we merely got a few more potions and nothing out of the ordinary. What the hell? This was a boss, where was my loot? I was just about to say something out loud to that end when I heard Archie yell out as he pointed to where the boss had come into the clearing. “Hey! There is a chest over here!”

Sure enough, there was indeed a large ironbound chest sitting at the edge of the clearing now that the boss was dead. Got to love video games! Despite Archie and myself being the faster of the group, it was Kayla who bowled past us to make it to the chest first with a squeal of glee at the prospect ahead of her. “I call dibs on opening it!” With a burst of laughter, Archie held up a fist for me to bump my own against before we followed our excited tank to the trove of loot.

Still running all the way to the heavy box, Kayla dropped to her knees and skidded along the ground for the last couple feet to stop just in front of the chest. There was no lock on this one, the thing designed to be opened easily as a reward for killing the instance boss, and she flipped the lid back hastily to peer inside. “Oh, nice! Got something in here for each of you guys, but nothing for me…” She seemed to pout at those last words, but shrugged it off as she had gotten her new axe from the mini boss earlier. “Here, ring for either of you, but I think the leather bracers were made specifically for Zex.”

Curious, I moved up to the chest and looked inside. The bracers she mentioned were only leather, inferior to my new chainmail set, but added a hefty boost to agility as well as boasting a decent armor score for leather. They were of Rare quality, as was the ring that drew my attention more than the bracers. I was only wearing two rings at the moment, but each character could wear up to eight in total so I had room for more easily. When I pulled up the information on the item, I had to let out a low whistle at its stats.

Ring of Brute Force

An enchanted ring made of silver, this item was stolen by the werewolf bandits from a hapless victim. Since it was made of pure silver, the creatures were unable to wear it and the item was stashed away in their stores.

+8 Str

+15 damage dealt

Nothing to sneeze at really… The item was rather decent for a rare item that can only be found in this instance, and I was more than happy to take it since Archie was more than happy with his new bracers. I picked it up and slipped it onto an open finger, happy for any boosts I could get to my stats. Also inside of the chest was a bag of coins totaling up to 6 gold which we split evenly between us. Right after we split up all of the loot inside the chest, the container faded away as a rumbling behind me drew my attention to the center of the clearing. A stone pedestal had risen from the ground with an indentation on the top of it, looking like something needed to be placed into the middle of the slender column.

“Well, I think that is my cue. I got the crystal to open up the extra boss if you guys are good to go for it?” He glanced to Kayla and myself, to which we each gave a nod. Our bars were all refilled at this point, and the extra loot and experience that would come from the boss before the first clear bonus went away would be fantastic. “Okay then, tally-ho!” He grinned, then moved over to place the crystal we got from the centaur into the depression. It fit perfectly, and the column of stone sank back down into the earth once more.

Yet another rumble shook the ground as part of the landscape shifted, a slab of grass covered rock sliding back to reveal an opening at the edge of the clearing. When the sound faded, I looked between my friends and the newly opened hole wondering to myself if we should go and check it out or if it was just letting a new boss in. My thoughts were answered as a gelatinous blue form began to slowly spill up and out of the hole, slowly taking shape into a large sphere-like design.

“Son of a bitch… It is a fucking slime! I hate these things… They are a pain in the ass no matter what game we are in!” The grumbling came from Kayla, her dislike of squishy slimy things making itself known to all upon the sight of the new boss. I had to agree with her at least in part. Slimes are indeed a major hassle to deal with, especially since we didn’t have anything in the way of powerful elemental magic to use against the thing. In most games, slimes tended to be highly resilient against physical damage and that left us with a major problem. I quickly used inspect on the boss, hoping to find out what we were dealing with exactly.

Unstable Experimental Slime

Level: 17

HP: ?

MP: ?

Unlike typical slimes, this one has been endlessly tampered with in order to create the perfect guard for the treasure of the bandits. Unfortunately, the creature has yet to be perfected and is highly erratic in its behavior.

Six levels above us as well as being resistant to physical damage… Well shit, this was going to be a slow and tough fight. Motion above us caught my attention as I saw our Fairies floating around high up, staying away from the actual combat while still being close enough for us to use their abilities, when an idea hit me. “Zex, Serena… You each have a ranged magical attack to use at least. Fallon can do his Moon blade things, and Celeste has a holy bolt attack. Not very mana efficient, but it is what we have. Keep your distance for now and use up your mana to bombard this thing to start and we will see where it goes from there.”

Nods of acknowledgement from each was followed up by the two of them lifting their hands and tossing out an attack from their palms. A golden sphere shot from Kayla while a blade of silver light shot forth from Archie to strike against the blue slime ahead of us. The holy bolt did a couple percentage points of damage, but it was the moon blade from Archie that was the real surprise. Instead of just hitting the slime and dissipating, the silver light actually hit at an odd angle and shaved a portion of the boss off. A good chuck of HP fell away from the slime, and the piece that was cut off splattered to the ground and began to steam as it shrank in size.

“Nice! Well, seems like we found a cheap way of beating this thing. Keep it up and whittle it down. I will jump in and attack it with the reach of my weapon to try and poison it.” I followed my own advice, running off to the side to keep the firing lane clear for my friends as well as hopefully keep the attention of the thing on a melee target so they could shoot at it freely. Keeping as much distance between myself and the blue slime as I could, I slashed into it with my scythe to almost no effect at all.

Two more ranged attacks pounded into the boss, dropping a bit more of its health before Archie called out to me. “This won’t work for long… We are losing way too much mana at this rate. I have enough for maybe two more and Serena can only toss out another holy bolt. The spells cost way too much to use.”

That was going to be a problem, but just then I had a problem of my own right away as the surface of the slime quickly formed a spike which shot out in my direction. Distracted as I was by Archie talking, I wasn’t able to dodge fully out of the way and got caught in my side by the attack. That fucking thing could hurt! 20% of my HP was stripped away in that one attack, but thankfully the boss was extremely slow in moving and I was able to back away before another spike could form.

“Yeah, this thing is going to suck… Fuck it. Move in and let’s get to work. Watch your energy levels and as you regen mana keep dumping spells into the thing. If you get too low, back off and use potions. This is going to take a while.” Two more spells drove in, the moon blade shaving another chunk off the mass of blue slime, and then the others were in range and pounding away at the boss. When the cooldown for Archie’s spell wore off, he depleted his mana by using his blade at close range to take the boss down to 70% HP.

Nine minutes and a few rotations out of range to chug potions, and finally the tanky boss was whittled down to 2% health. That’s when things went to shit… It must have been on an enrage timer, for the boss grew spikes out all over its body and began to pick up speed as it rolled around. It nearly trampled Archie right away, and only a lucky dive out of the way saved his bacon. As it changed, the color of the slime also shifted, now a dark red color instead of the blue we were used to seeing.

“Holy shit… Looks like we are down to just using spells on the thing at this point.” Archie flung out a hand, draining his mana once more to shoot a moon blade at the boss. Instead of striking the creature though, the spikes broke the attack apart before it could do damage to the main body and rendered the blade useless. “Well fuck me five ways to Friday… What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

The rolling ball of red spikes was starting to really pick up momentum now, turning around to roll towards the three of us once again. I was honestly at a loss for a plan of attack now… The boss was almost dead, and I had it poisoned, but we had no real way that I could see of doing more serious damage to it. “Well, we can try and stall… Maybe the poison will finish it off? There is 123 seconds left on it at the moment, so I hope that is enough to do the trick.”

We had to scatter as the ball rolled past us on a path of destruction, the ground getting torn up viciously wherever the ball of death rolled thanks to the multitude of spikes covering the red boss. It was Archie who came up with the idea, his eyes widening with the thought as he looked around quickly. “I got it! Come on, run to that big tree over there at the edge of the clearing.”

The boss was becoming rather fast now, and I calculated that we might not make it to the proper place in time. I threw up a Demi Speed spell at the boss, giving us a chance to get in position and turn towards the oncoming threat. “Now what? That spell doesn’t last long!”

Archie just grinned at me and winked. “Now, you dodge the hell out of the way fast enough to not get flattened!” Seriously? That was his glorious plan? For fucks sake, that was why I was the one who came up with the strategies in these games… Oh well, too late to argue now as the sphere of spikes bowled its way closer to us. Unlike the others, I at least had a sure fire way of avoiding the boss, and I took the guaranteed way out. Just before the others could react, I used my Temporal Step spell to causally walk away from the path of doom, the thought of an old movie with a guy who explored ancient temples coming to mind as I did so. Bet he would have loved to have this skill…

Time resumed after my spell ended, and my other two friends dove out of the way in the nick of time, the boss rolling quickly forward and slamming to a dead stop against the massive tree with spikes embedded into the thick trunk. Archie performed a graceful roll, coming up and flinging a hand out to shoot one last moonlight blade at the now stationary boss and taking the last of its health away. The red ball of slime slowly lost its form and sank into a thick puddle of goop as a window popped up before us.

Congratulations!

You have successfully been the first party to clear this instance! You have been awarded enhanced experience rewards as well as gaining extra fame for your achievement!

Rewards:

+36,300 exp (total)

+500 fame

Legendary Skill: Dungeon Raider

Chain Shirt of Wrath

Boots of Nimbleness

Shield of the Saint