“So, you insist on rampaging through my tower, despite my warnings,” the skeleton said in a deep, synthetically echoed voice. Kyle pulled himself through the window as it continued, “You have bested my guards, dodged my traps, and even outwitted my riddles. But now you must contend with the Wightlord himself. I ask of you; are you prepared?”

“No, actually,” Kyle said, edging around the perimeter of the room towards the stairs. “I’d like to stand on the other side of the room first. If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll just walk over to-”

“Too bad!” the Wightlord shouted. A glowing blue blade appeared in its hands, and it ran headlong towards Kyle.

Kyle yelped and ran towards the stairs, trying to kite him away from the window. A brief glance behind him showed he was far slower than the undead king. Kyle spun to face it right as it swung its sword to hit Kyle.

Kyle, weaponless, put to use Mason’s karate training and stepped forward, inside the reach of the skeleton’s swing. He grabbed the skeleton’s arm, robbing the swing of its momentum and stopping the blade.

And immediately regretted doing so.

Icy cold bit Kyle’s hand where he touched the skeleton’s arm-bone, quickly spiking down his arm and spreading into his shoulder. Kyle shouted in alarm and pushed the Wightlord away before withdrawing. The skeleton regained its balance and swung again. Kyle backed off, the sword narrowly missing his chest.

An arrow impacted the back of the skeleton’s helmet, and he turned. Dvorak, behind the throne, had his bow out. “Hey!” he shouted. “I’ve a got bow! Big threat over here! Better deal with me first!”

The skeleton, with its simplistic AI, changed targets and ran towards Dvorak, who dropped his bow in favor of his axe and shield. Kyle glanced at the window and saw Mason climbing through.

With a little time to breathe, Kyle took stock of himself. He tried to open up the status menu, but his arms felt heavy and unresponsive. Struggling to keep his hands up to press the buttons, he paged through his status info.

And saw his strength score was at -3.

“Guys! Watch out! It’s got a strength draining attack! Don’t let it touch you.”

Dvorak nodded, dodging around the throne to keep it between him and the Wightlord. Mason was moving in to flank, holding the hammer he reclaimed from the zombies. Braden had finally heaved himself in through the window.

Dvorak scored a hit on the armored skeleton with his axe. Kyle laboriously hit “examine” and waited for the bar to fill. He saw the skeleton’s HP had barely decreased. Even the next blow , a powerful strike from Mason’s hammer, didn’t make the bar move much. The thing had to have a ton of health.

Which made sense, given it was a final boss.

The Wightlord whirled around, striking Mason across the chest. A shimmering barrier flashed at the impact site and the blade was turned aside, but Kyle could see spidery cracks of frost form on Mason’s breastplate, and saw Mason’s HP drop by a surprisingly large amount given that the blade didn’t even penetrate the armor. Mason staggered back, hammer drooping.

This wasn’t going to end well.

Unless they did something clever.

“Mason!” Kyle shouted. “Window!”

The confused look on Mason’s face lasted only a moment before he nodded. “Dvorak!” he said, sidestepping a vertical swing from the Wightlord, “Take aggro. Clockwise, pull to window!”

Dvorak swung his axe hard at the Wightlord’s back, the metal clanging against its metal cuirass ineffectively. Mason dropped the hammer and pulled out a shield, and the Wightlord once again ignored the weaponless player to focus on the the armed player. Dvorak circled the Wightlord so his back was towards the window, and backed up as quickly as he could while still facing his foe, blocking its blows with his shield. Mason moved to follow, putting the Wightlord between him and the window.

From the other side of the room, a bolt of green light struck the skeleton’s back, leaving a sizzling glop of goo where it hit.

Kyle looked back, and saw Braden with his arm outstretched.

“What the hell are you doing!” Mason shouted as the skeleton withdrew from Dvorak and ran after Braden.

“Aggro swapping,” Braden said, pulling out a large shield. “Kite it back and forth between us and pepper it with ranged attacks ‘till it dies!” Braden hunkered behind his shield and blocked the Wightlord’s blow.

“No! No! Kyle, fog! Dvorak, bow! Now!”

Kyle ran towards Braden, stopping a few yards away. He opened his spell menu and punched the buttons for his fire mist spell. The mist flared into being, the edge just a few feet away from Braden and the Wightlord.

“Braden,” called Kyle. “Into the mist!”

“But only you’re immune to it!” A blow cracked Braden’s shield. He opened his inventory, blocked another blow that splintered the shield, and quickly retrieved a replacement.

“Braden!” Mason roared. “Into the mist! Now!” One of Dvorak’s arrows hit the Wightlord in the back, but it didn’t change targets. Even though Braden wasn’t holding a weapon, it must have considered him to be “armed” because it saw him cast a spell. Swapping aggro would require drastic action.

With a cry of annoyance, Braden ran into the fire mist, gritting his teeth against the pain. The Wightlord regarded Braden for a moment as another arrow whizzed by him. Then, finally, he switched targets and ran back towards Dvorak.

Dvorak, who had moved back to the throne to reclaim his bow, dropped it once more and dashed back towards the window. Mason maneuvered into position. Now that the Wightlord had changed targets, Kyle weakly pushed Braden back out of the mist. It had probably been a painful few moments given that Braden hadn’t ranked resilience, but he was only down about a quarter of his HP. He’d live.

Dvorak’s shield was back out again, and the Wightlord had him cornered against the window. Mason took a deep breath, and ran fult-tilt towards the skeleton. The skeleton, hyperfixated on Dvorak, didn’t see the threat until it was too late.

Mason crashed into the skeleton with his shoulder as Dvorak ducked out of the way. The Wightlord tumbled over Dvorak and out the window.

Mason suddenly lurched towards the window as well. His HP began plummeting.

Kyle dashed forward out of his fire cloud to see what was wrong. As he neared, he saw that the Wightlord had grabbed onto Mason’s arm as it fell through the window, and was hanging on.

Bellowing in pain, Mason retrieved his axe left-handed and swung it at the skeleton’s hand, severing it at the wrist. Free of the weight, Mason stood upright, dropped the axe, and pried the bony fingers of the Wightlord’s hand from his arm, letting it drop to the ground.

Panting, and at low HP, Mason sunk to the ground and kneeled. His arm was white and purple from the cold.

“Stupid strength drain,” Mason said. He tried to pick up his axe, but only managed to get it a few inches off the ground before it fell again. “Stupid ——- strength drain,” He reiterated, and placed a hand on the axe to put it directly in his inventory.

Kyle looked out the window. Falling eight stories dealt fatal damage to the boss, who was now a scattered collection of bones on the ground.

“I guess we can loot it later,” Kyle said, shrugging.

Braden approached Mason, smiling. “That was a neat trick,” he said. “Who’d have thought that-”

“Why the hell did you do that!” Mason shouted, and Braden stopped in surprise. “I’m the combat leader. We don’t have two. You nearly ruined the plan!”

Braden narrowed his eyes. “Only one leader in combat, huh?”

“Yes! Don’t pull unless I say to pull, or you can throw the whole raid off!” Mason struggled to get to his feet for a moment before falling back to his knees.

“So if there’s only one leader,” Braden said, “Then why did you listen to Kyle when he shouted ‘window’?”

Mason paused for a beat.

“Because he didn’t just go off and do his own thing! He made a suggestion! Like you should have. You could have shouted ‘I’ll aggro!’ and I would have said ‘No, don’t!’ There. Problem solved!”

“Uh-huh,” Braden said, folding his arms. “Of course. Well you know what I think? I think that-”

Braden was interrupted by a bolt of lightning from the side that struck Mason in the shoulder, knocking him off his knees and onto the ground, dead. His bar disappeared from Kyle’s GUI.