Earth

Hillside Lake Dungeon, Ontario

August 18, 2019

07:43 EDT

I pulled my sword free of the goblin and looked up to see an axe flying towards me. Dodging to the right, I reached up and grabbed the axe in mid air. Flipping it around, I threw it with all my strength while activating one of my newest abilities. The axe quickly crossed the distance and lodged itself in the hobgoblin’s chest. The ability was Unerring Throw, which allowed me to throw objects with extreme accuracy, though it came with the drawback of having a lengthy cooldown. It had come in handy a few times already, using hobgoblin’s weapons against them.

We took some time while we ate breakfast to finally roll off the Skill Gems we had accumulated the day before. Only fourteen were useful for us, so I set the other five to the side to be sold off at a later date. Still, the fourteen that were useful meant that every one of us got at least one new skill we could use, which was quite welcome as most of us had a pretty limited repertoire.

The room on the nineteenth floor was another interesting one. It was also absolutely massive. Hexagon shaped, the room had a large number of pillars that were cut off from one another. The only way to get to another pillar was to wait for one of the rotating bridges to turn so we could run across. The problem? There were groups of goblins on each of those pillars, and we had to fight our way across before waiting for another bridge to rotate so we could advance.

Going directly through the center of the room would be the fastest, but also much more dangerous. Each pillar in the middle of the room had four bridges that connected to it, which meant that we could be stuck fighting two groups of goblins while waiting for the bridge to rotate, only to have to fight another group of goblins as we ran across the bridge.

Comparatively, the pillars along the edge of the room would take the longest, but be much less dangerous. There were only three bridges that connected to them so we would only have to fight a maximum of two groups at a time; one from the pillar we were on, and one group from the adjacent pillar.

We decided to go with the path that would take us along the right side of the room for two reasons. The first was that it would allow us to focus on two directions; directly in front of us and to our left. The second was just that it would make it easier, even if it took slightly longer.

The goblins in the large room were a mix of goblins and hobgoblins, and there were a few more new varieties, those being berserkers and axe throwers, as well as something new. We had seen goblins riding on wolves on the floor that was setup to mimic the outside world, but we hadn’t seen any since then. Until now, that is.

They seemed akin to beastmasters. Some rode on wolves or other animals, including the odd bear. Those weren’t the only animals they commanded though. There were coyotes, eagles, and even a few cougars to name a few. While the animals didn’t seem to have any new abilities, they were faster, stronger and more agile than one might naturally be.

We decided to call them Beast Tamers. They were rather unique in that as well as commanding animals, they also used a variety of weaponry and had differing fighting styles. Some used bows, some used swords, and one even had two short wooden rods that he used to fight at close range. He was unlucky enough to go up against Anja, who cut through the rods with ease using her nodachi.

The most bizarre of the Beast Tamers was a female hobgoblin that commanded an eagle, while she herself used a pair of daggers. She didn’t have any stealth skills or movement abilities, and her entire strategy seemed to revolve around her eagle attacking someone’s face giving her time to get close. It didn’t end well. Her eagle collided with my shield, stunning it, and I saw her coming all the way. Aside from that, the floor was pretty normal and there were no curve balls thrown at us. It would have been an absolute nightmare if we had to deal with traps while running to a new pillar.

*****

The five of us ran towards the fifth pillar as soon as the bridge was in place for us to do so. Though they rotated fairly slowly, the bridges never stopped moving which meant that we could get trapped on a bridge if we weren’t fast enough. Luckily I had something that helped with that. Breathing in, I projected a jet of flame towards the goblins waiting at the edge of the pillar, roasting many of them and making the others flee.

As soon as we were across, Mason turned to prevent the goblins from following us. He didn’t have to stay there long; only long enough for the bridge to turn ten to fifteen degrees so the bridge would no longer connect with the pillar. While he was doing that, the rest of us started dealing with the goblins on our pillar. We were fortunate that it was the hobgoblins that were waiting at the edge of the pillar, so we only had to deal with a few more. The rest were regular goblins which weren’t really a threat and any one of us could deal with them rather quickly.

It was fortunate because the timing of the bridges varied, and the bridge that connected our pillar with the one to our left rotated into place around fifteen seconds after we had arrived on the pillar. Hobgoblins charged forward with dozens of goblins behind them. After finishing off the last remaining hobgoblin with a quick thrust, I pulled my sword free and then used Blink to meet them.

Anja beat me there using her newest ability. Leaping forward, her entire body gave off a soft white glow as she moved faster than I’d ever seen anyone move before. Every time her nodachi flashed through the air, several hobgoblin heads would be sent flying down below. It only lasted for about three seconds, but in that time she had killed nearly a dozen hobgoblins, and injured a few others. She turned into smoke and disappeared. A moment later I felt a slap on my ass.

[You’re up,] she sent.

Blinking forward, I activated the very same ability she had just finished using. That’s right, both of us had learned the same ability. Omnislash is a Tier C skill, which surprised all of us at first, until we realized why it wasn’t at a higher tier than that. There are a number of contributing factors, but the cooldown of an ability seems to have a lot of weight when determining what tier a skill or perk placed in. The sixty second cooldown and the rather limited duration of the ability meant that while powerful, it wasn’t higher than Tier C.

The ability itself allows us to move and attack very quickly, enabling either of us to launch devastating attacks. I was even more deadly than Anja was with the ability active, my two swords killing goblins with every strike. By the time the three seconds were over, another dozen and a half hobgoblins were dead, and the remaining goblins froze. Whether that was frozen in fear or something else, who knows.

We stared at each other for a while before one of the hobs in the back fired an arrow at me. It was deflected by Mana Shield, and that triggered the goblins to attack again. The bridge would soon no longer connect our two pillars, so they were pushing and shoving to get across in time. Some were inevitably pushed off, falling to their deaths, but the majority of them made it across, only to fall to the five of us. Mason had finished up with the goblins chasing after us so he leapt over using Whirling Leap and followed it up with a Seismic Shove. The result was that any goblin that wasn’t killed immediately by Whirling Leap was sent falling to their deaths after being knocked off the pillar.

It was the fastest we had cleared one of the pillars, so we moved over to where the bridge would take us to the next pillar. While we waited for it to rotate, it gave us the opportunity to see what lay in store. There were two Beast Tamers riding wolves, one of them equipped with a bow while the other had a pair of weapons. I couldn’t tell what they were exactly, as I could only see the handles poking over his shoulders, but they looked to be axes or swords. Aside from that, there wasn’t anything special in the group. It was made up of warriors and archers primarily, but I had no doubt that there were other types of goblins that I couldn’t see.

When the bridge was almost to us, we all hopped onto it and started running to the other side. The goblins seemed to have the same idea we did, as a bunch of them hopped on the other side of the bridge and charged towards us. I could have taken care of them, but Mason had already activated his only new ability. Similarly to Omnislash, a white aura emanated from his body before coalescing into a form in front of him as he ran. When it was complete, the phantasmal creature lowered its head and ran forward. It swung it’s horned head to and fro, knocking all of the goblins off the bridge, or, in one unlucky hobgoblin’s case, impaled it and lifted it into the air.

The ability was Bull Rush, which, as you can probably imagine, sends a bull running forward. Using it in large open rooms would probably be rather useless, but on bridges or corridors, it was a very powerful ability. The bull dissipated just after getting across the bridge, but it was enough. Mason had been following right behind the bull the whole way, so he Dashed forward and used Seismic Shove again. It didn’t knock any goblins off the pillar as it has before, but it did give us a nice open area to stand in.

Omnislash was back off cooldown, so Anja and I split up and each took a section of the pillar and activated the ability. Just like that, over two dozen goblins and hobgoblins were dead and we had a bit more room to work with. Seeing movement out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large amount of goblins running over from the adjacent pillar. Not wanting to fight nearly two entire pillars-worth of goblins, I warned my friends before activating Blink and appearing at the end of the bridge.

Breathing in, I unleashed a wave of extreme cold at the approaching goblins. The range wasn’t nearly as far as my fire breath, but it did the trick. The first few dozen goblins were frozen solid, and that pretty much created a wall that stopped the goblins in their tracks. They could probably destroy the frozen statues, but that would take time. By the time that happened the bridge will have already moved out of range leaving them trapped there until it rotated around again.

I turned around in time to see a cobra flying through the air. It struck one of the hobgoblin archers in the neck, and immediately bit down. The archer dropped his bow and reached up with both hands, grabbing onto the cobra. He yanked to try to pull it off and finally managed to do so after a few seconds and quickly killed the cobra. The cobra had done its job, however. As the hobgoblin went to pick up his bow, he stumbled before collapsing face-first into the stone floor, dead.

That was Cobra Shot, one of Sonja’s three new abilities. When activated, she would fire an arrow as she normally did, but that arrow would turn into a cobra as it flew. One with extremely potent venom. It too had a sixty second cooldown, but seemed quite powerful. The real test would be when she used it on a boss.

Looking around the pillar, I saw that the mounted archer was sitting in the back firing off arrows without pause. Wanting to put a stop to that, I bent down a picked up a sword that lay in the cooling hands of a dead hobgoblin. Drawing my arm back, I flung the sword towards the hobgoblin. It tumbled through the air a couple times before balancing out and flying tip-first. The archer must have seen something out of the corner of his eye, because he looked over. His eyes went wide and he barked out a command to his wolf. The wolf moved, but it wasn’t nearly fast enough.

The sword lodged itself deep inside his chest, knocking him off the back of the wolf. Feeling the absence of weight upon his back, the wolf turned to look at his master. After sniffing him and nudging him a few times with his nose, he turned back to us. Spotting me alone, he bared his teeth and snarled before rushing forward.

Deactivating the sword in my left hand, I dropped it and grabbed the spear handle from my belt. I extended it by channeling mana into it and then raised it over my shoulder. After taking a few quick steps forward I activated the last of my new abilities, Javelin Toss. The ability wasn’t anything special since it was a Tier E ability, but it was another ranged attack, bringing my total up to three. Or five if my breath weapons were included in that.

It seemed that I may have thrown the spear a little too hard, as it struck the wolf’s chest and continued its way through until it finally stopped with the tip sticking out of the other end. The wolf tumbled a few times before coming to a stop. That was when the mana that was keeping the spear extended ran out and it collapsed, the handle being stuck somewhere inside of the wolf.

Grimacing at the thought of having to go digging around inside of it, I reactivated my sword and turned to help out my friends with the rest of the goblins. Getting the spear back would wait until later. Blinking to the closest hobgoblin, I impaled it through it’s chest before Blinking again and activating Omnislash to increase my movement and attack speed. The goblins were spread out quite a bit now, so I was only able to kill seven of them before the ability expired, but it was still an improvement.

I cut down goblins for another twenty seconds or so before Anja shouted, causing me to turn. The bridge that would take us to the seventh pillar was almost in place, so we all stopped what we were doing and rushed over to it. I saw that the body of the wolf had disintegrated leaving my spear handle sitting there, covered in blood. Cleaning it off could wait until later. The Beacon appeared in my hand and then both the handle and the Beacon disappeared one after the other as I ran to the bridge.

After hopping on, Mason used Bull Rush to clear the way again while I turned to face the goblins that were chasing us from behind. It was extremely easy to deal with them since the bridge was so narrow; A quick fire breath and they weren’t a problem any longer. Spotting the most dangerous-looking target, I Blinked over and punched him in the face, knocking him on his ass. Activating both of my swords, I brought them down on him. He raised his two handed axe to try to fend off my attack, but my strength was much higher than his was. With a little bit of effort, both of my swords penetrated through the hobgoblins armor, one aimed for his heart and the other his right lung.

After a quick twist for good measure, I pulled the swords free just as something hit my back, throwing me on top of the goblin I had just killed. While my armor absorbed the majority of the hit, it still hurt quite a bit. If I hadn’t been wearing my armor it would’ve done considerable damage.

Activating Precognition, I could see that it was a tall, heavily muscled hobgoblin that had hit me. He carried a heavy mace which looked to have a head made out of a block of granite that just had a handle attached to it. I saw that he was raising it overhead again, intending to bring it down on me with even greater force. Without Precognition the attack likely would have hit, but I rolled out of the way in time for it to hit the fallen hobgoblin instead. There was a sickening crunch which was followed by the distinct smell of feces, and that only proved to make the mace-wielding hobgoblin madder.

He lifted his mace about a foot before there was a flash behind him. The mace immediately dropped back down, eliciting another, quieter crunch than the previous one. The reason for that was clear, as the hobgoblin had let go of the mace to reach up to his neck, his eyes wide in shock. It had no effect as blood continued to get past his hands, coating them red and dripping down his body. He fell to his knees before falling forward, his head rolling off and stopping a few feet away.

I saw something out of the corner of my eye and turned to see Anja kneeling there.

[Break time is over,] she sent, nodding her head over to the side.

Looking over, I saw that the bridge connecting the adjacent pillar to the one we were currently on had moved into place, allowing another small army of goblins to begin their charge. Nodding, I got back on my feet and used Blink to arrive before they did.

This time as I took a deep breath, vines shot out of the floor and wrapped around my head, blocking my mouth. Evidently a druid had seen what I was capable of and was trying to prevent me from doing it again. I laughed mentally at that, and unleashed the breath anyways, switching it to my frozen breath at the last second. If the vines had been resistant to fire, they definitely weren’t good against extreme cold. They immediately froze and shattered as I continued to breathe. The goblins in the front tried to turn and run away, but they were pushed forward to their deaths. By the time I was done, there was another wall blocking the bridge and I could see the druid on the other side. She was clearly furious, and seemed to be casting something else.

Not wanting to lose a spear, I looked around for a weapon I could use. Finding one, I strode over and picked it up before turning back to the druid. With a quick few steps, I threw the discarded wooden spear, this time opting to use Unerring Throw rather than Javelin Toss. The result was the spear crossing the distance between our pillars very quickly, penetrating the druid’s chest. Since she wasn’t moving forward, the impact of the strike was enough to knock her clean off her feet, ending whatever spell she had been casting.

I looked to check the position of the bridge to the eighth pillar and then began moving, wounding or killing goblins everytime my swords hit something. It was the first time we had been able to kill all the goblins on pillar, though the goblins on the adjacent pillar were trying to change that, hacking at the frozen statues of their friends or teaming up to push them off the bridge. They were making some progress, though they weren’t fast enough to reach us before the bridge arrived.

Jumping over to it, we began running with Mason in the lead. Rather than use Bull Rush, this time he activated Whirling Leap to land on the pillar and followed it up by another Seismic Shove. While it didn’t clear the goblins off the bridge, it did send quite a few hobgoblins over the side of the pillar, reducing the amount of goblins we would need to fight.

Ben activated Aura of Flame, and then all four of us went to work clearing the goblins off the bridge before it rotated too much. Up until a few hours ago Ben hadn’t been able to cast anything while moving, though that all changed with the final Tier C ability we had acquired. He made a quick motion towards one of the goblins in front of us and a ball of fire closed the distance, setting the goblin’s clothes on fire. The goblin dropped his weapons and dropped to the floor to try to put the fire out by rolling, but all that did was send him falling down to his death.

The ability was Fireblast. It does comparable damage to Ben’s Fireball, but costs a lot more mana to make up for it being an instant cast spell. The cooldown isn’t terribly long, but the cost makes repeated use prohibitive. He tried it on the first pillar and found that he could only cast it six or seven times in quick succession before running out of mana. It didn’t take him very long to regenerate enough mana to cast it again, but his mana was better spent on better things when we weren’t in a rush.

As it was, we cleared off the goblins rather quickly and got started on pushing the goblins back so the five of us would have more room to fight. Anja and I split up again, each activating Omnislash to clear a small group of goblins. After that, it was rather easy. The timing ended up being pretty weird, and we actually managed to clear all the goblins off the pillar before the bridge would let the adjacent goblins run over.

Actually, it seemed like both the bridge that would let us advance to the final pillar and the bridge leading to the adjacent pillar were perfectly synced. Rather than deal with them and then have to wait for the bridge to rotate again, we just ran across to the last pillar and cleared all the goblins off of it.

We did have to deal with the adjacent goblins one last time, but after that it was a straight shot across a long bridge to a massive balcony where a group of hobgoblins were waiting. There were two tamers in the group, one mounted on the back of a bear while the other was mounted on a male lion. How he managed to get a lion? Who knows, but it was definitely a lion.

There were four more hobgoblins in the group including a warrior, archer, druid. The fifth one looked to be a monk or whatever he was, and I decided right then that he would be my first target. After taking a few minutes to discuss who would fight what, Ben and Mason began summoning their elementals. Ben’s would keep the druid busy, while Mason’s would do the same with the archer. It wasn’t the fastest, but it was extremely durable and would be able to hound the archer until one of us was free. That left Mason to deal with the warrior while the twins would take one of the tamers. Anja chose the bear-riding tamer since the bear was likely to be slower than the lion, while Sonja would deal with the remaining hobgoblin.

As soon as both elementals were formed, they were sent forward, beginning the fight. I grabbed a new spear, extending it as I ran before activating Javelin Toss and throwing it with all my strength. I immediately channeled mana into both of my swords and then Blinked twice in quick succession. I knew that the spear likely wouldn’t hit him, it was just to get him to move. Unfortunately he moved in the opposite direction than I’d hoped, so he was still a couple of feet away from me as my spear flew by.

I lunged forward, thrusting my left sword forward, but the monk just batted it to the side and rapped me on the knuckles. I looked up to see that he was grinning while he held his staff to the side. I mirrored the grin before activating Precognition followed by Omnislash.

It was like I was moving in slow motion. The monk’s grin was still on his face, but it was slowly changing into a look of something else. I didn’t pay much attention to it, however. My body almost started moving on its own. There weren’t any other enemies to attack nearby so my swords struck the monk over and over.

It felt like a lot more than three seconds for me, but in those three seconds there wasn’t a spot on his body that wasn’t hit. Unless I looked closely, it didn’t even look like I was injuring him with my strikes. Until time went back to normal for me, at least. Then blood started pouring from all over the place and the monk fell to his knees as he choked up blood. He had dropped his staff and clutched his chest before looking up at me, a look of shock upon his face. A moment later, he collapsed face down onto the floor, dead.

I turned and looked around the room to see who needed help the most. Anja had taken out the bear’s rider, so now she was just dancing around the bear who was too slow to catch her. Sonja had taken the opposite approach, going for the lion first, and that seemed to be going equally as well. The lion’s master lay upon the ground with an arrow sticking out of his gut as he convulsed, a clear sign that he had been a victim of Sonja’s second new ability: Stunning Shot.

I saw that the druid was trying to keep its distance from the fire elemental, but it was having a rough go of it. He was able to summon vines that looked highly resistant to the inferno that made up the elemental, but they weren’t able to do anything since the elemental didn’t have a physical form. I did see what looked like clouds a few meters over the elemental, but the rain they were producing wasn’t nearly enough to extinguish the flames. Deciding to leave the elemental to it, I looked around the room until I saw the earth elemental.

It was not doing well. There were arrows sticking out all over the place and the stone that made up its body was chipped as well. One leg was definitely longer than the other, causing the elemental to have an uneven stride, slowing it down quite a bit. I saw that Mason had the warrior on the ropes after a quick glance, so I decided to deal with the archer.

Blinking over, I appeared behind the archer as he was backing up towards me. He had no idea I was there, which made it extremely easy to thrust both of my swords through his back. I twisted them before pulling them free, looking back up to see the earth elemental had closed the distance, it’s two boulder-sized fists raised high overhead. I quickly backed up just as it brought those two fists down, utterly crushing the hobgoblin below while shaking the ground. Apparently Mason hadn’t given it very clear instructions as it repeatedly lifted it’s fists overhead and brought them down on the hobgoblin's corpse. Watching it was almost like watching someone use a mortar and pestle to crush or grind something.

The action continued to the point that the earth elemental literally started breaking apart from the sheer force. Given time, an earth elemental could do a ridiculous amount of damage, and this one was only rank one. It made me shudder when I thought about what an earth elemental made out of metal could do.

[Uhh, Mace? I think your elemental has done its job.]

[Uh-huh, I think you’re right,] he replied.

A moment later the earth elemental ceased smashing the archer any further and strode over to Mason, who had finished off the warrior a while ago if the large pool of blood around it was any indication. The rest of the combat in the room had halted, as everyone had watched with morbid fascination as the archer was quite literally ground into paste.

The only two combatants left were Sonja and the tamer that had been riding on the lion, but she raised her bow and fired it without looking before walking over to the rest of us. The arrow turned into a cobra on the way, which sunk its teeth into the chest of the hobgoblin, making it realize that it was still in a fight. Looking down at the source of the pain, he seemed horrified to see a snake had latched onto his nipple.

Screaming, he ran around for a few seconds before grabbing onto the snake and pulling it free. Dropping it onto the floor he began stomping on it until he stumbled and fell to his knees. He looked down at the remains of the snake, and then up to Sonja as she walked away, and then collapsed to the floor.

The bodies started disintegrating a moment later and we went around picking up anything left behind. We didn’t get lucky in terms of loot, but we did get some extra Mana Gems from the lion and bear, which was pretty cool. We now had hundreds of things which would make for a decent payday whenever we decided to sell them.

As we were walking to the stairs leading to the twentieth floor, I saw something glint out of the corner of my eye. Looking over, I saw the handle of the spear I had thrown was sitting up against the wall nearby. I grabbed it after Blinking over, and then Blinked back to rejoin my friends.

Walking down the long stairs, we activated the waygate and then stopped to look at the double doors. Usually they were pretty bare and normal-sized, but these ones had a portrait carved into them and were many times bigger.

The image was of two hobgoblins that looked like they were twins. Everything from their weapons to their armor was identical. At first I thought that they were axe throwers or berserkers, but that was when I noticed the two similarly identical wolves that were off to the side, a hand from each of the hobgoblins resting on their respective wolf. Without opening the door, it seemed like we would be facing the boss for the twentieth floor immediately, rather than having to make our way through a maze or fight our way through the floor.

Not wanting to waste any time, I walked up to the doors and pushed them open. They slid open with ease, revealing a brightly lit up room. It was shaped like a triangle and was similar to the previous floor in that we would be fighting on pillars. There were three of them; one directly in front of us down a set of stairs, and then two more pillars that were accessed by narrow bridges.

There were two more bridges that led to a set of stairs on the direct opposite side of the room where both hobgoblins and their wolves had been sitting. Now, though, they made their way down those stairs and split up, each hobgoblin and their wolf going to one of the two pillars. As they walked, a thin tablet-looking object started rising out of the floor on the pillar closest to us. It looked to have some text on it, but it was too small for any of us to read.

The five of us walked down the stairs and positioned ourselves so we could see the text. After taking a minute to read what was on it, we all looked at each other with different expressions on our faces.

The tablet outlined a set of rules for the fight, the chief among them being that we would have to select two party members to fight. The two party members selected would split up, each fighting one of the bosses. It was a non-lethal duel, ending when either the hobgoblins surrendered or the party members did. There was another important rule as well; the two people we choose will get a piece of soulbound equipment and a Skill Gem suitable for them if they win. The rest of us will get nothing.

Everyone started talking at once, and I let them while I thought about it. As I did, I realized that what probably should’ve been a difficult decision was actually a pretty easy one.

[Quiet,] I sent.

They did as I asked and then all of them turned towards me.

“Whattaya say, Jonathan? You and me?” Mason asked, extending his halberd with an eager grin on his face.

I immediately shook my head. [Neither of us will be fighting, Mace.]

“What? Why?” he asked. “We’re the strongest out of all of us. We’d be able to make quick work of it.”

[Two reasons,] I answered holding up two fingers. [The first is that it’s a non-lethal fight, it doesn’t matter who we pick because there is no chance of one of us dying. Secondly, and more importantly, the people that fight will get a piece of equipment suitable for them. Why would we send out our two strongest when we could send out our two weakest and make them stronger in the process?]

“I didn’t think about that,” Mason replied sheepishly. “So who do we pick? The twins?”

[Anja for sure,] I answered looking over at her. [Ben and Sonja are on pretty even footing, however, so I’m not sure who to pick.]

“Send Sonja,” Ben said while Sonja said, “Send Ben,” at the exact same time causing all of us to burst into laughter.

[Why send Sonja, Ben?]

He shrugged. “I’m more of a support guy and she’s a damage dealer. I’m pretty sure she will be able to choose the piece of gear she gets, so that will probably benefit her more than it would me.”

[What about Skill Gems? Are you able to choose the one you get?]

“You can’t choose the Skill Gem, but I’m pretty sure you can sorta pick the tier of the Skill Gem.”

[Sorta?]

He nodded. “There will be a six-sided dice or something similar to determine which tier you get. It’s not really picking, but whoever goes will have some influence on it.”

[Alright. Why send Ben, Sonja?] I asked, looking over to her.

“My damage is in a good place right now, I think, and while I would certainly get a nice increase, there is a chance that Ben gets a skill that could be very useful. The tablet said that both the piece of gear and the Skill Gem will be suitable for them, right? That means that Ben could get a new aura out of it. Maybe another more powerful healing aura?” she finished, looking over at Ben.

Ben was shaking his head. “The aura thing was my plan before Jonathan’s parents dropped their bombshell and we got this armor. I’ve got more damaging spells now than auras, so it’s probably likely that I’ll get another damaging spell out of it.”

I took a few minutes to think about it, taking out my phone and delicately sliding a claw across the screen to look at their stats. They were nearly identical in terms of how many attributes they had, Sonja having three hundred forty-one and Ben having three hundred forty. The distribution varied wildly between them, however. Both focused heavily on their primary attribute, but it seemed like Sonja was splitting her points so she could get enough Intellect to summon her Air Elemental.

Ben was right about having more damaging spells than auras. He had five damaging spells, six if you included Summon Fire Elemental in that, while having four auras. It seemed like only two of his auras got any use since our suits heal any damage we take. As I thought about it, I realized he had never used Aura of Lifestealing, instead opting for Aura of Flame or Aura of Bloodlust, depending on what we were fighting. While we wouldn’t get any healing from Aura of Lifestealing, it might add a nice bit of extra damage to our attacks.

Making my decision, I put away my phone and turned back to my friends. They had been chatting while they waited, but stopped as I walked towards them.

[Ben, you’re up.]

He nodded but otherwise stood there. Mason was the first to speak though.

“Aww, you missed a prime opportunity to put the twins against the twins,” Mason said, pointing his thumbs at the two hobgoblins behind him.”

We laughed at that and then Anja asked how the fight would work. Ben took his phone out and started explaining how it works.

“Alright, so apparently boss fights like this are similar to the evaluation rooms we were in. Not the same, but similar. As soon as we step foot onto our respective pillar, an energy field will form around us. This does two things; the first is that it stops anyone from interfering in the fight. The second is that any damage taken during the fight will be reversed as soon as the fight ends, almost like a rewind. If you lose a limb, it will reattach.”

“If a killing blow is detected, like a head in the process of being chopped off, then everything will automatically freeze. The fight will end and the wound will be healed. To end the fight immediately, all you have to do is call out ‘I surrender’ and it will end. At that point, someone else will have to take their place, otherwise we won’t be able to advance to the next floor.”

“How reliable is what you’re reading?” Anja asked. “Are we sure that it’s actually non-lethal?”

“It’s right from the Adventurer’s Guild website, so it should be accurate.”

“Which side do you want, then?”

“It doesn’t really matter to me. They look the same so we won’t be able to tell what they are until we actually start fighting.”

“I’ll take left, you take right?”

“Sure,” Ben nodded.

*****

They took a few minutes to get ready and then walked across the bridges to their respective pillars. As soon as they set foot on their pillar, a light orange column of energy rose from the floor, reaching the ceiling and then disappearing entirely. Anja poked at it with her sword and the area around her lit up again. It was still there, just invisible unless acted upon.

It seemed that the hobgoblins were content to let Ben and Anja make the first moves, as they both stood there, waiting. Anja wasted no time. She ran forward while firing off a couple of Ice Shards, officially starting the fight. The hobgoblin and his wolf easily dodged the shards of ice, and he immediately threw one of his axes at her before barking out a command.

She had moved out of the path of the axe almost immediately after it had left the hobgoblin’s hand and turned her attention to the wolf who was rapidly closing the distance. She dropped to her knees and started sliding just as the wolf leapt into the air. Leaning back, she pulled a dagger from the slot on her belt and activated it before stabbing the wolf in the chest and pulling it down as she slid. The result was the wolf nearly being disemboweled. The wolf yelped and then began to tumble, which prompted the hobgoblin to shout something else. As we watched, the wolf’s wound began stitching itself back together as the wolf got back to its feet.

Ben was taking a slower approach. He activated Mana Shield before raising his hand out in front of him. I couldn’t see his face, but I did see a small ember appear in his hand. It steadily grew until a fire elemental was floating in front of him. It moved forward as Ben levitated a few inches off the floor as he cast his next spell. It seemed like he was hoping that the hobgoblin would focus on his elemental rather than himself, giving him time to finish casting Meteor Shower. If he got lucky, then both the hobgoblin and the wolf would take a serious amount of damage on top of being knocked down by the falling meteors.

The hobgoblin didn’t seem at all phased by the fire elemental as he barked something and his wolf began running right at it. As the wolf ran it became a bit bulkier and it’s fur turned darker. It leapt right through the elemental and continued running towards Ben, the fire doing no damage whatsoever.

Ben continued his cast as the wolf got closer, and it looked like he wouldn’t complete it before the wolf reached him. The wolf leapt again just as Ben dropped back onto the floor. Raising his hand, Ben fired off a quick Fireblast and used the opportunity to Blink to safety. The wolf, having been blinded by the flames, stumbled and rolled a few times before getting back to its feet and shaking its head. Looking around, it spotted Ben on the other side of the platform and began sprinting back towards him.

Anja ignored the wolf, going right for the hobgoblin. She had to dodge to the side to avoid the returning axe, and fired another Ice Shard directly at the hobgoblin’s face. Having to move at the last second meant that the axe flew past the hobgoblin and impacted the shield behind him, clattering to the floor. Anja used the opportunity to use Shadowstep to appear behind the boss and immediately followed it up with Omnislash.

She was a blur as she moved and wounds started appearing on the hobgoblin. He cried out in pain and then bent down before leaping in the air to get away from her, landing on the other side of the pillar. He fell hard, but then began to glow red as he grew a few inches taller.

“Shit, he’s a berserker,” Mason said from beside me.

I nodded and continued to watch the fights, not knowing where to look. I could see Anja smiling, even as the hobgoblin got bigger and more powerful. She turned her attention back to the wolf who was getting close, raising her hand and firing off another Ice Shard. It didn’t have any time to react, the shard hitting it square in the face. It yelped but continued running, leaping into the air when it got within three or four meters.

Calmly stepping to the side, Anja took her nodachi and swung, aiming for the wolf’s legs. Almost like a hot knife through butter, her sword cut through the wolf’s legs, sending them to the floor as it soared past her. It yelped in pain again and then slid across the floor until it hit the shield. She walked over and raised her nodachi overhead before striking at the wolf.

The hobgoblin roared and started running at her as he saw her raise her sword, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop her. She cut clean through the wolf’s head, killing it instantly and making it a one versus one. Without looking, she took one hand off her nodachi and pointed her hand behind her, firing off another Ice Shard. It connected with the axe that had been flying towards her, deflecting it just enough to miss her, leaving the hobgoblin weaponless. Or not.

He raised both hands out in front of him as he ran and the axes flew back towards him. Catching them both, he chopped down with one as soon as he got within range. Anja had taken a moment to switch out her nodachi for her katana, and easily parried the chop while getting in an attack on his torso in the process. We could all hear him grunt from the pain and he chopped with his other axe, which collided with nothing but air.

Ben was focusing on the wolf seeing as his elemental was keeping the hobgoblin busy. Fire seemed to be ineffective against the wolf, so he used Chaos Bolt instead. I don’t know if animals can have mana, but he was still doing damage to it with each spellcast. Each time the wolf got close, he would Blink across the room and continue casting.

The hobgoblin had tried to prevent him from doing so, but Ben’s fire elemental was a lot faster than Mason’s earth elemental and was able to keep itself between Ben and the hobgoblin. It was also invulnerable to damage since the hobgoblin didn’t seem to have any water or air abilities. As a result, Ben was able to act with impunity.

I could see the wolf moving slower with every Chaos Bolt, but there was no visible damage to it. It was just as bulky and it’s coat was the same brown color as it was when the hobgoblin activated whatever ability that was. As time went on, the hobgoblin tried a few more times to prevent Ben from killing his companion, but either his axes were reflected by Mana Shield or Ben’s fire elemental prevented him from getting close. He also avoided the fire elemental like a plague, which made me think that he wasn’t a berserker like his brother.

About three minutes after the fight started, the wolf finally fell, looking like it had died of natural causes rather than a long series of Chaos Bolts. We heard the hobgoblin express his anger before somehow arcing his axes around the fire elemental. They were glowing red, which was pretty bad in our experience. Ben saw them so he used Blink to move out of their path. All of us were shocked when the axes actually changed direction and moved towards him, almost like missiles homing in on their target.

He used Blink a few more times, but the axes followed him wherever he went. There wasn’t anything he could hide behind, either. I could see his expression change after his last Blink. After a quick glance at the hobgoblin, he turned towards the incoming axes. I was expecting him to move before the axes got to him, but he just stood there. After a moment he raised his hands in front of him. One pointed towards the incoming axes, while the other was pointed towards the boss. When the axes were only a few meters away, a small portal, approximately two meters in diameter formed in their path.

The axes flew into the portal and I lost track of them. I even looked all around the room we were in but didn’t see them anywhere. Nor could I see the exit of the portal he had just created. I looked back over at Ben to see that his fire elemental was gone and the boss was moving towards Ben. He wasn’t moving naturally, however. There was a painful grimace on his face and his feet were dragging against the ground. As he got closer, I could see the handle of something sticking over his shoulder.

That’s when I realized that Ben had opened up the portal directly behind the boss. The axes flew through the portal and then lodged themselves in the hobgoblin’s back. They were still trying to reach Ben, though, which meant that the boss didn’t have control over them after. Or he couldn’t control them now. I noticed that both his arms and his legs were completely limp. Perhaps one of the axes severed his spine?

Ben raised his staff and started casting a Fireball. Just before it finished, the hobgoblin spoke:

“I surrender!” he choked out.

The boss, his wolf and Ben were all immediately teleported to the spots they had been when the fight started, the axes in the hobgoblin’s hands and the wolf back on his feet and breathing once more . The hobgoblin dropped to his knees while simultaneously dropping his weapons as he wrapped his arms around his companion and buried his nose in it’s fur.

It was an awkward moment for us not participating in the fight, but for Ben it must have been more so. There wasn’t a chest or anything that had spawned, so it seemed like he would have to wait until Anja was finished with her fight. He couldn’t join us, either, as the shield around the pillar was still active.

The berserker was much bigger than he had been the last time I had looked over. He now dwarfed Anja and had to be eleven or twelve feet tall by now. He was chopping at Anja, but she danced around him, always avoiding his strikes while getting in plenty of her own. She had to have done a massive amount of damage to the hobgoblin for him to grow that much, but she would have to get a lethal strike in to end it.

She started moving very quickly once again, clearly having activated Omnislash. The blur that she was moved around striking at the hobgoblin wherever she could. Suddenly the boss’ right arm fell off just below the elbow causing him to scream out in pain. I hadn’t even seen the strike that did it. He began swinging his remaining good arm wildly, hoping to get a lucky hit in. Alas, it wasn’t enough. She dodged a few of his attacks before finding an opening, and severed the other arm, this time above the elbow.

Blood was spurting from both stumps and after looking at them, the berserker surrendered as well. The three of them were reset to their original positions, the wolf standing beside the berserker while Anja stood opposite of them. Both the berserker and wolf were healthy again, and the blood that was on the floor, as well as the blood on Anja’s armor was gone. It was as if the fight had never happened.

The berserker pet his wolf for a minute or so before sheathing his weapons behind his back and walking up to Anja as his wolf followed.

He stopped a few feet away and spoke. They were so far away that I could barely hear it.

“You scary demon. Very scary. Good fight,” he said, offering his hand for her to shake.

She accepted his handshake. “I thought you were never going to fall. I kept hitting you and you kept getting bigger.”

“Big not so good. Move slow, make enemy hard to hit.”

Anja nodded. “Sorry about your wolf,” she said looking down at it.

“Happens,” he shrugged as he reached over and scratched his wolf’s neck before looking back at Anja. “We die. Get hurt. Always come back. Come. You win. You get loot.”

As he turned around, there was a flash of light and a number of objects appeared on the pillar. There were mannequins with different pieces of armor fixed to them as well as weapon racks with all sorts of weapons. There were also seven stands that had bowls on top. I couldn’t see what was in them, but I figured it was the Skill Gems.

I looked over to the platform that Ben was on and saw the exact same scenario, though he was a little further ahead. I saw him go from mannequin to mannequin putting a hand on a piece of armor for a few seconds before moving to the next. After a moment he turned to the hobgoblin, asked him something and then moved over to the weapon rack and began investigating the items there.

Anja was doing the same thing, though she went right over to the weapons rather than the armor to start. I had a feeling that it would take a while, so I turned around to take a seat on the steps while we waited.

[So how’d she do?] I asked Sonja, guessing that she had watched her sister more than Ben.

“It was pretty incredible,” she said as she turned towards me. “Her agility isn’t very high, so she doesn’t move as fast as she otherwise could, but she was dancing around him like it was easy for her. She didn’t get hit once. It was close a few times, but I think those were calculated near-misses. She always got a pretty big hit on whenever he got close.”

[I imagine it was pretty easy for her,] I replied. [Being able to see what is going to happen in two seconds is a pretty powerful ability. She may have the lowest stats out of all of us, but she is by no means weak.]

Looking back over to Anja, it seemed like she had chosen a weapon. Or a pair of weapons, rather. From a distance it looked like they were butterfly swords, but it was hard to tell. She put them away and then walked over to the seven stands where the berserker was waiting. They spoke for a moment before she reached into the first bowl and grabbed something. Walking back a few steps, she put one hand on top of the other and shook them for a few seconds before dropping the item she held. After waiting for it to stop, both Anja and the berserker walked forward to look at it.

It was obviously a dice, and she obviously rolled something good judging by the broad smile on her face. The berserker picked up the dice and dropped it back in the bowl before walking over to the stand on the far right. Reaching in, he plucked a Skill Gem out of the bowl, turned, and handed it to her.

She accepted it and they spoke briefly before the stands all around them disappeared and the shield around the platform fell. After shaking hands again, she turned and started walking towards the stairs that would lead us to the twenty-first floor. I looked over to Ben and saw that he was now rolling the dice, having apparently picked an item already. I didn’t see it anywhere, which meant that he probably put it in his storage already.

The scene was mirrored, though Ben didn’t seem as happy as Anja was. The hobgoblin walked over to the third bowl and proceeded to pick out a Skill Gem before he handed it to him. They didn’t speak nearly as long, and Ben was soon walking towards Anja.

[You guys can cross now! Apparently we need to leave though as there is another team right behind us waiting to fight the bosses,] Anja sent.

I immediately started running across the bridge, not wanting to have to explain my dragonkin form to anyone. Mason and Sonja followed me, and soon we were sprinting up the steps to the door that would lead us down to the next floor.