Once back inside, I grinned at my two party members and rubbed my hands together in anticipation of finishing this instance up. “Alright, time to get back to work. Zex, go scout and find our next target, Serena and I will check this room quick and then follow behind you. Keep your eyes peeled for more pats and try not to train the whole castle back to us.” I grinned, showing him I meant that in jest. I trusted Archie to handle his job without much issue as he had never let me down in the past.

“Right-o boss. I am off!” He gave a mocking salute to me, then stopped to glare. “And if you find anything good I better be told!” With that, he was off, the only door of meaning left in the room opening and his form fading away from sight to scout the way ahead.

When Archie had made his way deeper into the castle, Kayla turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “Just for that, I say even if we don’t find anything we make up a story about getting something amazing and refusing to share it with him.” She gave me a Cheshire grin. “It would drive him nuts!”

I had to laugh at her, shaking my head as I started looking around the room for anything that may be lootable. “You know, there is a term for women like you…” I opened up a storage box off against the wall, but it didn’t contain anything of use. Searching the rest of the room, which contained mainly benches and a couple desks to leave the main portion of the room clear, I found nothing.

“Yeah, I know I can be a bitch at times. Not like you didn’t know that back when we were in school though.” She laughed a little at that, but I had to admit to myself that she was right on the money with that comment. “Besides, it isn’t like Zex can’t be a bastard at times. Hell, even you have your moments.” Pulling open the desk drawers, she fished around and drew out a pouch of coins with a grin. “I seem to recall a couple times in school where you decided that being civil to other humans was too much effort to you. Especially when you were hungry!”

I paused, catching the bag of coins she threw me to let the AI distribute them between the party members, and tilted my head as I thought back to those days. Yeah, she had a point… “Well, if you put it that way…” I grinned and shrugged, not refuting her accusations since they were indeed true. “Anyway, let’s head after Zex and finish this place up. I have a meeting tomorrow and want to get to bed early tonight.”

Kayla tilted her head at me, an inquisitive look in her eye as she walked with me towards the door. “You too? With the Old Man?” She lifted her shield up, ready for anything, and took the lead into the hall beyond the guard room. There was no alert from Archie just yet, but we never knew if he had missed a pat on his trek and weren’t taking chances.

I had to take a moment to process her words about who she meant by ‘Old Man’, but when I compared it to the meeting I had the next day I made the connection. “Ah, yes. Not sure what is up, but he had sent me a message during our last break about having an emergency meeting with me tomorrow morning.” I shrugged my shoulders, not having a clue as to what it might mean should multiple people be meeting with Willcot at the same time. I figured it would probably be a group update to the state of the game and our part as employees to Dumadine Technology as a whole.

“Well, I for one am glad we will be doing a group session. I have a few things I want to bring up with everyone, but none of which I want to be mentioning in game at the moment.” She smiled ruefully at me as we traversed along the halls, finding nothing but empty corridors and dust along the way. “With how the game is progressing, I am sure you have a few concerns yourself at any rate.”

I had to shrug at her choice of words, remembering my previous meetings with Willcot about my thoughts of the game. “Yeah, there are a few things on my mind, but I have already brought the bulk of them up in previous meetings. Although I must say that I am looking forward to pulling the Old Man aside and have a word with him in private, probably with you and Mr. Obnoxious up ahead of us as well.”

Kayla laughed at my choice of words, and was about to say something when Archie’s voice filtered in through the party chat. “You do realize I am listening to you two at the moment, right?” I heard a deep sigh through the chat, my friend letting his opinion on our antics be known. “I swear, the shit I put up with between the two of you.”

That brought a laugh out of both myself and Kayla, with the latter springing up with a comeback before I could. “Oh you are just pissy that you never make up any good names for either of us quick enough to make it worth even a pity laugh.” She flashed a grin at me, egging Archie on with her comments.

“Hold up folks. Time to work.” The tone of voice coming through to us sobered myself and Kayla up instantly. “We got a pat incoming, and the next hallway looks… Weird. Something seems off about it, and I want you two up here with me before I progress any more.” It was a logical and reasonable idea if he was getting such an off-put feeling. Even in games one has to trust their gut after all. If a person got a strong urge to do something, seven out of ten times it was worth following that feeling. The other three, you ask? Well, then you just respawn and try again!

“Got it. We are picking up the pace, lead the pat back to us and we will deal with these problems one at a time.” Kayla readied her shield in her right hand as I took up position right behind her and a little to her right. I would be able to strike past her on that side without fear of getting in the way of her swinging axe at all during the combat at least, plus it left plenty of room for Archie to run past us and let Kayla grab aggro.

It only took Archie forty seconds to pass us by, calling out as he did so. “All yours my lovely savior!” As soon as he was past us, Archie spun and ducked down behind me to lose line of sight on the mobs, seven of them. All were the normal Guards we had been seeing for most of the instance, only this time there was a new addition that rounded the corner and into my field of view. Tall and thin, the thing still being a skeleton and all, it wore robes of dark red and had orbs of flame rolling in the normally empty eye sockets.

With a squint of my eyes, I focused on the thing. “Is that this game’s version of a mage mob?” I watched in fascination as an orb of light floated around the corner and hovered over the robed mobs shoulder. As if to confirm my question, it lifted a hand and thrust the bony palm forward to lob a fireball over the guards and splash against Kayla’s shield. “Right, mage dies first.” I threw a skull icon over its head and looked at Archie. “I will jump over and take care of that one, start working on the normal guards and I will attack from the back when I finish the mage.”

Not waiting for confirmation, I knew they would follow my plans unless something I wasn’t aware of changed, I triggered Temporal Step and dodged around the frozen Guards in order to get behind the mage. I barely made it in time before my skill faded and the sounds of running skeletons filled the hallway once more. With a savage grin, I dug in one heel and swung my scythe hard at the mage just as it was lifting its hand up once more. The angle of my strike was off a bit, so I twisted a little to alter the course and slashed the blade of my weapon right into the shoulder of the arm that was raising.

A crunch and rattle filled my ears as the health bar over the mob’s head plummeted by a full third, the arm I hit falling away from the rest of the body as my strike inflicted a crippling wound to the undead. It may not feel pain, but let’s see it cast spells without one of its hands! With a flare of those burning eyes, the mage proved that it could cast spells with the left hand as well as the right…

Flame exploded out of the skeletal left hand in an outward blast like an explosion, the force of it knocking me backwards and almost making me fall on my ass as my HP took a healthy hit. 20% of my life was gone in an instant, the bright flare leaving spots in my vision as I leaned my weight forward and swung my scythe around at the enemy that was still within the long reach of my weapon. Luckily, the exploding magic must have had a cooldown, because I made short work of the remaining life the mob had left while only having to dodge a fireball and eating a flame spike spell for another 10% of my HP. The damage I received was negligible though, since my lifesteal had me back up to 90% by the time I finished the mob off and turned back to the rest of the pat.

Archie and Kayla were making good time on the mobs before them, two of which having dropped already thanks to the holy spells Kayla was slinging around when the opportunity presented. Each spell cast sent at one of the Guards dropped a third of its HP in one go, if not a bit more, with the only downside being that she was having to focus more on blocking than casting. Perhaps it was time for me to lend a hand there and try to even the playing field a little more.

Dashing back down the hall once more, I activated True Haste as I stepped in range of my attacks and laid into the exposed backs of the squad between myself and my friends. My HP quickly filled back to 100% with my attacks, while at the same time I dropped one more of the low health Guards under my assault. From that moment on, the fight went like all of our previous ones as we focused the mobs down one at a time until none were left.

A quick check of our inventory revealed more trash loot and some more coins to line our pockets, but nothing of remarkable note. At least until I turned around and noticed Aly floating next to the orb that had followed the mage skeleton, which remained hovering in the air above the skeletal remains. Those bones should have vanished when the fight ended, leaving me to grin at the prospect of another quest.

I walked over to my Fairy who looked at me with concern showing in those electric blue eyes. “Calamity, do you know what this is?” She turned back to the pale red colored orb and stretched a hand out, not quite touching it. “This is the soul of a dead Fairy! We need to help it, Calamity!” With those words, I received a new quest.

Quest Received!

Final Rest

You have found the soul of a deceased Fairy that has been forcefully tied to this world. Find a way to help this innocent being to pass on to the afterlife and end it’s suffering.

Rewards: Experience, choice of 1 item from an armor set of this instance.

Happy as a pig in shit, I looked to my friends to see if they got this quest as well and received knowing nods from each of them. Perfect! With this quest combined with the first clear bonus, we should be well on our way to a good set of gear that would hopefully serve us well in the coming levels. I nodded my head at Aly, a smile still on my lips. “Of course we will do all we can for this fallen Fairy, Aly. Do you have any idea as to what is keeping it here in this world?”

Crossing her arms over her stomach and hugging her body lightly in apparent distress, Aly shrugged her shoulders and bit her lower lip as she thought. “Uhmmm… I am not well-versed in these matters, but from what I do know it is probably some dark and forbidden magic used by whoever is in charge of this castle. The same magic that re-animates the skeletons is the most likely culprit for the reason of this Fairy’s undeath as well.” She turned towards me and my friends again, a look of pleading in her eyes. “Our best bet would be to try and kill the Lord of this castle, I think.”

Yay for free loot! We were going to clear this place out anyway, and if all this quest needed was for us to kill the final boss then we were guaranteed some extra loot! “You bet Aly. We will put down this castle Lord and do everything in our power to free the Fairy here.” I lifted a hand and patted Aly’s shoulder with the tip of one finger. It never hurt to suck up to an AI for the possible chance of more freebies in the future. Turning to Archie, I nodded at him. “Alright Zex, lead on to this strange hallway of yours so we can make progress again.”

He gave me a mock salute, then took the lead once more to guide us to the area in question. “It isn’t far, and there wasn’t anything else in these corridors besides that patrol.” He shook his head as we walked, one hand rubbing the back of his neck as he spoke. “I don’t understand what is making me hesitate here, honestly. Something just feels wrong and I would rather have the back-up in case shit goes south quick.”

Kayla lifted a hand to her mouth and faked a couple coughs, fitting in a barbed comment of “coward” in between them. I chuckled, but turned my head to her with a knowing grin. “You say that now, but I remember a time when you ignored one of his feelings. Remember that one Serena? The time when you called Zex a loser, then proceeded to get ambushed by a rare spawn boss?” Archie laughed while Kayla sputtered, apparently having forgotten about that little mishap of hers. She had died almost immediately from that ambush, but if she had listened to Archie, she probably could have lived with a prepared defensive cooldown.

To his benefit, Archie didn’t press the issue and instead pointed at the next corner of the hall. “Right, focus time people. Up here is the corridor in question. No mobs in sight, but it seems off to me.” We stopped at the corner and peeked around the wall to take a look. Nothing seemed out of place to me right off, but I immediately understood where he was coming from.

I couldn’t put my finger on it right off, but then it hit me! “The ceiling is different!” I reached an arm out and pointed at what I noticed. Every ten feet or so, there was a shadowed recess in the ceiling that wasn’t there in any of the halls we had previously passed. “Think they are traps?” That was the only thing I could think of that would explain those indentations here while there were none beforehand. This whole dungeon seemed to be a step above the first instance we cleared… That one had been about as straight-forward as they come, while this one was proving to have a lot more depth to it.

Kayla frowned and peered closer at the hallway. “Hmmm… Maybe. I can’t make out any trip wires or places that might trigger the trap if that’s what they are though.” I saw her eyes lose focus a moment as she accessed her inventory and drew out a trash item that looked like a broken helm from one of the Guards. “Doubt this will work, but worth a shot.” Without further ado, she rolled the helm like a bowling ball down the middle of the hall. The piece of armor hopped and bounced loudly down the corridor until it came to a stop about halfway along with nothing else happening.

Archie shrugged his shoulders and patted Kayla on the back. “Well, it was a good idea anyway!” He looked at me and grinned. “Now it is your turn! Use your haste skill to perceive time better and keep your step skill ready. Walk down the hall and if you see anything or hear us yell, activate the step ability and get back here.”

I tilted my head at him in thought, then nodded. It was a good idea and with Aly I was the most likely candidate to survive springing a trap in this castle. “Good plan… If it fails, I am going to throw you off the parapets of this castle though.” I gave him a wicked grin, letting him wonder if I was joking or not, then stepped around the corner fully and stared down the hallway. I took a deep breath and activated True Haste while keeping an eye on my mana. If it got too low, I would have to stop and wait for it to refill so I could always have enough MP to use Temporal Step to jump my ass out of danger.

With my mana already starting to drain, I moved forward steadily down the hall with my eyes flicking all around me. Most important to me was the floor in all honesty, as that would probably be where any trap triggers resided. Nothing about the area indicated a possible pressure plate system, as there weren’t any tiles of varying colors nor did there appear to be any floorboards that were higher than any of the rest. Despite all of my attention though, I nearly missed the moment when I heard a faint ‘click’ of something beneath my foot as I stepped.

Triggering Temporal Step, the world around me froze as I flicked my gaze up to see a spear dropping out of the hole in the ceiling, the point frozen only a few inches above my head. Sighing at the close call, I took a couple steps backwards and waited. Once the skill ended, the spear dropped the rest of the way and embedded itself into the wooden floor of the hall where it quivered slightly.

“Oh! Damn that was a close one.” Kayla hooted from the corner behind me. “I thought for sure you were toast when we didn’t yell in time!” I glanced back at the two and grinned, Archie looking a bit pale at the close call while Kayla seemed quite pleased it wasn’t her in my shoes at the moment. She shooed me forward again with an evil smile on her face. Yeah, Kayla was enjoying this way too much…

Setting my shoulders, I stepped past the spear embedded in the floor and continued on once the cooldown on my skill ended and my mana refreshed. Now that one trap was sprung, I figured any more would be easy enough to trigger and remove from our path. Farther down the hall, I saw another recessed hole in the ceiling and merely put pressure on the floor just beneath it. I felt the floorboard depress and quickly pulled my foot back in time to avoid the shooting spear of the second trap.

“Awww… Another miss!” I turned and glared at Kayla, which only made her laugh again at my expense. I had to admit, if our positions were reversed I would probably be doing the same thing.

“Yeah, yeah… Come on guys. I have this figured out now and we should be fine if I trigger the traps as we go!” I waved them forward and moved ahead to the next trap to trigger it and move on again. Once I figured out exactly what made the trap spring, it was easy to avoid any damage from them with my high speed ratings. Within a few more minutes, we cleared the corridor and pushed open a large door at the end of the hall. The sight awaiting us there was rather shocking…

Despite the lack of mobs between the first boss and where we were now, it seemed like we had made it to the main throne room. The area was large with a high ceiling supported by thick stone columns with a balcony running around the edge of the second story, a gigantic chandelier hanging in the middle of the room to provide light. While we had only run into the one patrol on our trip from the Guard room to here, the milling mass of mobs in this area more than made up for that deficit. Groups of Nobles filled the large chamber, Guards lining the walls to the left and right, and a big group of more Guards standing at the base of a raised platform at the far end of the room where the throne resided.

Sitting on that throne was a living man, dressed in heavy plate armor with a glowing orb over one shoulder which appeared to be another Fairy soul. We were too far away to get any details from the mob, but he appeared to be the boss of this instance at least. Now it appeared to be my turn to give Kayla an evil grin. “Alright my vicious beauty, your turn to step into the fire.” I put a hand on her back and pushed her into the room as Archie and I stepped back and got ready. “Start pulling packs and let’s clear this instance!”

Grumbling under her breath, Kayla readied her shield and picked out the closest pack of Nobles to cast a spell on and draw back to our waiting combat zone. After my hasty look, I guessed that there were a good eighty mobs waiting in the room for us before we could make any kind of attempt on the boss on the throne. It was time to get to work and clear this trash up! The first pack of Nobles were upon us quickly with Kayla’s spell, and we dove into the combat that was now so familiar to us, each filling the role we needed performed. Being the weakest of mobs in the instance, the Nobles each fell rather quickly, requiring only a handful of attacks from either myself or Archie.

Within fifteen minutes, we had cleared out the easily accessible Nobles and began working on pulling the Guards over a few at a time. We wanted to be efficient, but at the same time we didn’t want to pull too many and get overrun with mobs. We could probably handle all 20 of the Guards lining the walls, ten to each side, at the same time if we burned cooldowns, but why test fate? Anything could go wrong with an accidental misplay, so it was better to handle the mobs in smaller groups. In the end, it only took us ten minutes to mop up the Guards not near the boss and left us allowing our energy and mana to recharge while taking a look at the big baddie on the throne.

Taking a peek at the boss’s stats, it turned out to be the Lord Hashrom who I noticed mentioned earlier when we ran into the Nightmare boss. Level 18 with no other vital information available, he looked to be a handful with his heavy armor and group of six Guards who were all better equipped than the previous ones. Perhaps these guys would drop better armor than what we were getting, since plate armor had dropped a few times now but only of trash quality. I grinned in anticipation at the chance of maybe getting a couple pieces of good plate armor from all of the rewards of completing this instance.

“Okay, game plan time. We have no idea what this battle will bring, so Serena keep your mana solely for healing and be ready to use your bubble skill from that shield. Might need more than one charge from it for this fight depending on how it goes.” She nodded to me, her hands adjusting potions in the quick access slots of her belt for a better configuration. “Zex, you and me will do our jobs of dropping those Guards as fast as possible, but if that whole group decides to come at once I will try and pull two or three of those adds onto myself and rely on potions and lifesteal to survive. I give myself about a minute and a half of that before I fall, so any mobs on me will be first priority.” I paused, looking the boss over and trying to pry his secrets free. “I don’t see what kind of weapon he has, so this fight will be major touch and go until we figure it out.” Glancing at the UI, I noticed our bars were all full once more and nodded at my friends. “Alright, show time.”

Preliminary plan set, we all readied ourselves while I applied my last poison vial to my scythe for a little extra damage. With the use of that one, I only had one vial of the paralytic poison left to my name besides the couple vials of the regen poison. I had to admit that the poisons were useful, but I wasn’t about to spend hours upon hours grinding my herbalism and alchemy up just for a minor convenience and saving a few coins. Gold came easily when you were at the head of the pack in games. Items sold for decent money as I leveled up and I was getting first crack at all of the rare quest lines since we were the first party through the area. Nope, wasting the time on boring professions was nowhere in my mindset. Never was and most likely never would be in all honesty. Too much wasted effort in the end when I could just spend a couple coins to get what I needed.

Musings aside, we nodded at each other and grinned with anticipation as Kayla walked forward slowly, trying to aggro the Guards without pulling the boss as well. I doubted it would work, but we could only try and find out. As she took a step, we saw the Guards all raise their heads and look at Kayla, the indication that she was approaching the max range of their aggro zone. One more pace and then the Guards all started towards her while the Lord lifted his head to look at us. Tight zoning there, but luckily it seemed like the adds could be pulled separate from the boss himself. All six well armed and armored Guards approached in formation, their easy discipline showing that they were indeed a tier above the previous versions.

Kayla let out a loud whoop of eagerness and stepped back a few paces to leave the range of the Lord, no need to pull him on accident while dealing with the adds, right? All of this was standard dungeon practice to a gamer really. Separate the trash from the real threat, wipe it out, then focus on the biggest mofo in the room without distractions. Maybe in the future we could figure out a way to skip some packs of mobs, or find a shortcut of some kind to make it easier, but the first time in an instance always paid to be careful and leave nothing alive behind you. After several steps backwards, the pack of Guards were on Kayla and she was wielding her axe and shield to full effect as Archie and I waited a few moments to allow her to build aggro on all of them. Not that I was idle during that time, of course, since I had taken the down time to mark up the mobs with raid icons. Not only would that tell Kayla which one we were attacking first to gain max threat on the mob, but it also laid out our entire focus pattern down early in the fight.

Once our tank had sufficient aggro, Archie and I did a fist bump and dove into the fight with abandon. Between our concentrated assault, the mobs began to drop fairly quickly while Kayla managed to keep her own HP up in the high zone without much healing needed. Her armor class was seriously something to be envied at this point in the game, negating a very large portion of the damage incoming towards her. Everything was going according to plan for the first few minutes, we had dropped two of the six Guards and had a third in the red zone, when things started to go sideways like a good encounter should in my opinion. Simple and straight fights tend to be boring, honestly.

As soon as the third Guard fell, something hot and extremely painful slammed into my back and dropping my HP to the 30% mark in an instant! Burning sensations all along my back told me I was hit by a fire spell of some kind, and as I stumbled forward and past Kayla from the force of the blow I looked back to see the Lord standing in front of his throne with his left hand raised. In the right fist he gripped a longsword made out of pure fire that looked like it would be quite irritating to deal with. My mind reeled as I went over options on how to deal with the boss being drawn into the fight already, and a plan quickly settled into my thoughts.

I ripped a health potion from by belt and drank it down as a golden glow encompassed me and healed me up to 80% between the two, the regen ticks making my red health bar climb even higher. “New plan! Serena, leave these mobs here and get on the boss. I will grab the attention of these guys with Zex to help me finish them off while you busy body the boss and turn him away from us. I can’t take another of those fireballs and neither can Zex. Keep him busy until we can join you!” I wasn’t sure if the magic attack had crit me on the back or if that was the flat damage, but we couldn’t take any chances and find out the hard way. Kayla nodded at me and shifted around so her back was to the boss for a moment while I activated Rage and True Haste. My armor would drop a lot from the Rage skill, but with the increased damage and speed of my attacks I should have little problem keeping up with my lifesteal.

It took all of four seconds with my berserked status to pull the remaining three adds onto myself, allowing Kayla to spin around and rush the boss. What she did then, I had no clue because I was fighting for my life against three mobs while my armor was reduced by a good margin. My initial assault on them stripped all three of 25% HP, but that still left all of them standing to focus on my squishy self. Archie took it upon himself to focus one of the mobs and make it focus on himself, his dodge rate allowing him to easily tank one mob for a short time, and left me to deal with the remaining two. And deal with them I did! In the time I had while both Rage and True Haste were active, I managed to finish off one mob and start in on the second before my mana ran dry. That True Haste skill really was a mana sink! 20 seconds of True Haste was all I had the mana for, and it ran out before the 30 seconds of Rage did. I was taking damage faster than I could heal it, but the destruction I was dishing out more than made up for it. With 60% of my HP left, I finished off the first mob and focused on the second in time for Archie to join me on taking that one down.

After our Guards were dropped, I popped another potion and activated a charge of my amulet to pump my health back up to stable levels while Archie drank a potion himself. Lives safe for the time being, I looked at the situation with the boss and grinned. Kayla was handily dealing with the hulking plate boss, stepping back every time the fiery swords swept out and kiting the boss across the room. Her health and mana levels were still decent, although she was down to about half mana and energy, but the boss’s HP was already at 95%. She had gotten a few clean hits in already obviously, and that meant this wasn’t a lost fight in the end.

Archie and I started towards Lord Hashrom and readied ourselves to dive into the fight once more when out of the corner of my eye I saw the Fairy Soul suddenly flare brighter. That couldn’t be good, and I quickly grabbed Archie’s arm and jumped back to pull him with me. It was just in time, as the boss spun a complete circle with his sword extended to send out a wave of fire all around him. The flames fizzled out before reaching myself and Archie, but Kayla grunted with a grimace as 20% of her HP was stripped away instantly. “Keep an eye on that Fairy above him! It flared brightly when he was about to use that fire spell!” Warning delivered, I jumped forward and started in on the boss with everything I had left in me. My energy levels were decent, but it hadn’t been able to fully recharge after my furious use of it against the mobs I was tanking.

With a resolve to keep an eye on my UI as well as the Fairy Soul and the boss all at once, Archie and I piled on the damage as quickly as we could to great effect. Well, great for a boss wearing full plate armor at the least! Hashrom’s HP bar began to steadily decline at a slow pace under the combined focus of our hard mode characters with boosted stats and good gear. Every 5% mark of his health, the boss would spin around with his fire cleave, but it was telegraphed enough that we were able to dodge it most of the time. Kayla had the hardest time of it since her movement speed wasn’t nearly as high as ours, but she still managed it half of the time at least.

At the 75% mark, things got a bit hairy. Instead of using his cleave attack, the boss seemed to drop all aggro and switched his focus onto me! He ignored Kayla and Archie and started hacking at me with a fury, dropping my health to half frighteningly fast. My mana had regened enough at that point where I easily triggered Demi Speed on the boss followed by a Temporal Step to get out of his range. Archie had stopped dealing damage as soon as he noticed what happened while Kayla continued to beat on him and cast a heal on me for extra aggro. The boss had taken several steps towards me before our tank could bring the attention back onto herself and we rejoined the fight in earnest once more. Of course, almost as soon as we did we had to jump away from a cleave at the 70% HP mark. The fight mechanics were fun, but annoying at the same time with all the running and dodging needed.

The fight went on like that for a time, the boss resetting aggro at the 50% mark once more, though we were ready for it that time and I didn’t take much damage before getting out of the way and allowing Kayla to bring it back to herself. At 25% though, things became really tough… As soon as he hit the final phase, Hashrom lost all aggro tables apparently and began swinging around completely at random. One moment he would focus on me, then turn on Archie, then back at me or Kayla in a completely random set of attacks. No more cleave attacks came after that point luckily, or we might have wiped, but by the time we finished off his last bit of health all of us were at low health and energy with almost no mana remaining. Really it was one of the hardest encounters we had faced yet even if it was for only a quarter of the fight. Perhaps with more party members the damage would have been spread out more and easier to manage, but with only three players it was a tight ending.

Sweating and weak from exertion, at least simulated, we all fell back onto our asses and panted for a moment before grinning at each other. Seemingly as one, our eyes went a little out of focus as we called up out menus to dig into the inventory screens and see what goodies we had gained from this bastard of a boss. My hopes were high, the difficulty of the fight preluding good rewards for a job well done, and sure as shit I wasn’t disappointed.

Plate Bracers of Hashrom

Set: 1 of 8

Bonuses:

+15 armor

+10 Str

+10 Fort

+3 Int

Bracers from Lord Hashrom’s personal armor set, this armor has been forged of excellent quality material with all of the skill of the crafter poured into it. Years of use by the powerful Lord Hashrom have also added to the power of this item.

Collect more pieces of this armor set for additional bonuses.