Gem had no real way of knowing if it was the Ostrum engaged with his Boss Mob. But considering no others could reach the island, there was no one else it could be.

He looked to his wisp, but Chesu was already moving back towards the dungeon.

“Go!” Chesu screamed over his shoulder. “I’ll catch up!”

Without a pause, Gem transported his consciousness back to his Core Room. It took a moment, and would have been dizzying if he had a body. But disorientation didn’t slow him down.

He instead looked for the attackers.

There were no Ostrum in his Core Room, nor outside in the Attic. The Plantlings sat at their generators, completely oblivious of any changes to the dungeon.

Magiphis’s roar came again, this time louder and closer. It sounded furious, and there was a loud shriek in response. Then another.

Gem checked his map. His mobs sat where he had told them to when he left. Only Magiphis had moved. He remembered Chesu’s distinction between ‘invader’ and ‘adventurer’ and felt like frowning.

Gem thought, targeting all of his mobs with the telepathic thought.

Gem thought himself lucky. He’d told Magiphis to do “Boss Things,” which must have meant he thought of the Ostrum as fair game. If he’d told the creature to only engage adventurers, then he could have been alerted too late.

Magiphis engaged in combat! 95% hit points remaining.

Cicadossum II engaged in combat! 100% hit points remaining.

Goosalope II engaged in combat! 100% hit points remaining.

Other text spammed his vision as his Plantlings and other mobs entered into combat. Gem went to join them—to at least observe and help direct the flow of combat—when he noticed Shriek and Pals sitting at the top of the stairwell. They looked forlorn, as if they wanted to help, but they weren’t able to safely make it down the stairwell.

Gem told the five named Plantlings.

The five Plantlings rallied with a chorus of shrieking sounds from Shriek before they lined up in two staggered rows in the doorway of Gem’s Core Room. They weren’t nearly tall enough to fill the doorway, but they seemed impressive soldiers nonetheless.

Gem made a mental note to ask Chesu about arms and armor later. The Plantlings would be so much more useful if they were actually capable of using their hands for defense as well as block generation.

He moved his consciousness downstairs into the Boss Room.

It was chaos. Gem needed a moment to observe before he could piece out individual things that were happening.

His mobs were all engaged with three winged creatures, although one of them didn’t seem to have the ability to fly any longer. One of its wings was slashed and torn, ripped in almost two by huge gashes. Likely damage provided by Magiphis’s giant claws.

The Ostrum were awful to behold. Thin and spindly, they seemed to be made of living shadow. No features marred their empty faces, other than anywhere from a pair to six pairs of eyes. Their skin was black with a purple undercurrent and it seemed to be pebbled like a frog.

But these weren’t organic creatures. Their bodies were made of sharp right angles, like elongated or thinned out blocks, depending on the part of the body. The only parts that seemed to be organic were their wings, and Gem doubted those were part of the original design. They seemed to be an afterthought.

A glowing miasma emanated from the Ostrum’s forms in puffs that dissipated quickly. Impossibly long limbs lashed out at Magiphis as they howled in a low, droning tone.

Where the limbs struck the Cicadossum’s carapace, sparks of that miasma erupted. Individual bits of it looked like purple and black blocks, but scaled down.

Magiphis wasn’t doing so great, even this early. The Boss Mob was down under 90% of its health readout. Bits of his carapace flew away as the attacks rained in.

Gem felt so worthless, just sitting here and watching.

But he didn’t have to just watch.

He could command.

Gem thought at his regular mobs before saying to Magiphis:

The Cicadossum Boss Mob let out a ferocious cry that filled the room and caused all three Ostrum to stagger back. When the effects of the cry had worn off, they redoubled their efforts to attack him. Magiphis lashed out with his tail in wide arcs, slicing each Ostrum with massive spikes with each swipe. When they gathered too close, he resorted to single-target attacks, rearing up on his back legs so that his front paws could slash and grab and maul.

Meanwhile, Gem’s smaller Mobs danced in and out of the Ostrum’s large legs. There was no coordination to the way they attacked, but Gem didn't need to organize them. More commands might just slow them down, or cause them to become confused.

The Plantlings stuck together, all five attacking as a whirling ball of vine and twig limbs and shrieks. Their individual damage wasn’t much, but together they were an effective team of constant pain.

It was easy to see the advantage of the Plantling as a mob—what they lacked in size or skill they made up for in chaos. They would swarm adventurers and whittle them down before anyone knew what was happening.

Gem really wanted to see them get stronger.

Likewise, the Goosalopes were interesting to watch fight. They seemed to have two battle stances, and the one didn’t quite make sense.

Gem watched as one of the Goosalope threw its brown and white feathered wings wide and started waving them, as if it were trying to intimidate or tease the Ostrum. It honked as it did, filling the room with a cacophony of deep, loud noise. They droned and echoed through the room, the sound refusing to dissipate. The Goosalope did this for about thirty seconds or so, before curling its wings in on itself again, lowering its head, and charging the Ostrum’s leg with its antlers.

Where it struck, pillowing clouds of purple and black miniature blocks floated away. It was like blood spraying from a wound, but there was no wound to see. The Goosalope threw its head back and honked victoriously before leaning back for another ram.

Around it, the Goosalope’s companions did the same.

A coordinated attack from all five Goosalope sent the Ostrum staggering.

It looked at first like it might recover, but then two Cicadossoms were on its head. Gem wasn’t quite sure how they had arranged that, but it was likely something to do with those prehensile tails they were flinging around.

The Cicadossoms battered the Ostrum’s featureless face with their tails and claws. Each attack didn’t seem to do much damage, but combined with the continued assault on its leg the Ostrum found itself overwhelmed.

It didn’t see the spikes of Magiphis’s tail coming before they split its chest in two.

A wordless howl erupted from the Ostrum as black and purple miasma swirled from the giant gash on its chest. Its eyes flashed a brilliant violet before it grew still and slumped to the floor. There it burst into hundreds of purple and black particles, which shot into the air and then vanished as quickly as they appeared.

Gem cheered his mobs on.