“You were right about the swamp, it really stinks.” Raphael said as they walked into the pre-boss room. Unlike the Neighbourhood Boss rooms, the Borough Boss didn’t produce any mobs and their chamber remained clean and empty. There weren’t even any Vespa in here.

Ben was indeed right, the place was a lot bigger. The ceiling was easily 20m in the air, higher than Darryl had seen it yet, and the door was wide enough to let four people through at once. That still meant a bit of pushing for everyone to get in, but this hall was large enough to fit all 40 of them.

“Should we already proceed, or wait for everyone to come in?” Ben asked, trying to glance through the narrow slit that the door had been opened already.

“Let’s wait until everyone is here, we don’t want to start the Boss Battle and lock them out of the fight. Even if many of them wouldn’t mind that.” Mr. Geruet said. “At the very least, we want the tail to come in as well.”

It would be nice if Gamma would be part of the battle, indeed. They had proven themselves mentally and physically capable of fighting bosses to grind, incurring losses only when being literally swarmed by a hundred Vespa at once, and those three were at the end of the group.

The group had been mostly going from the strongest to the weakest, with Mr. Geruet and Raphael in front and as the new team leaders of their large party. The fodder was in the back, just to make sure that if the Boss Battle doors would close and cut the party in half, the ones trapped would have a chance to prevail anyway. Gamma was the exception to make sure that the Vespa coming from behind wouldn’t incur casualties on the way there.

That said, if the party were cut in half, it might just be the ones locked out that would be doing the dying. The amount of Vespa was getting ridiculous, and they might just swarm and exterminate the weaker delvers in the time it took to beat the boss.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Eva shouted that she was in, and with that everyone had squeezed themselves into the hallway.

The Boss Battle music started playing not a moment after. The doors slammed shut behind Eva and the double doors before them opened up. There was an old woman sitting in a rocking chair in front of a decrepit old cottage, carving some kind of idol out of finger bones. She seemed just as surprised by the sudden battle as the rest of them, but there was already a crooked smile on her face when time stopped.

The old witch was hideous. Not just ugly or unnatural, but hideously wrong on a level that combined and transcended both.

Her body was round like a barrel with two sagging breasts that reached all the way to her knees, and her legs were almost half the length they should be. There were folds of fat everywhere around her hips and chest, and her skin was mottled with celluloid and fat boils wherever it was clean enough to distinguish anything at all.

Her legs were scrawny though, skinny sticks despite their width not being halved like their length. Her feet were long to offset it, hand-like and lengthened by six three-digit toes leading to thick, black nails. Her arms were similarly scrawny and wiry but so long that they dragged across the floor. Her hands were gnarled with long black fingernails that curled in on themselves, with pale skin between them granting her fins.

She was completely naked, except for several strings of human hair strung around her arms, legs and breasts that held small bones of both animals and people in place. She had one much thicker rope of blonde hair around her waist like a belt, from which many hollowed bones, pouches and shrunken heads hung. One head hadn’t been reduced in size, the man’s eternalised scream of agony acting like a morbid imitation of a loincloth.

But the real horror was her face. Behind matted and tangled hair that would make dreadlocks feel clean, and the many dead things that she braided into it, was a face that looked just humanoid enough to make it a horrid parody of a person.

It was asymmetric in every regard that it could be without losing that semblance of humanity, every part of the face just a little off-set. Her eyes were too far to the sides of her head, the right a bit higher than the left and curving along with her cheekbone while the left was more round in spite of breaking up its cheekbone. Her right nostril was sharp and flaring, while her left nostril faced the floor and looked like booger-delving stretched it out a long time ago. Her chin was a bit too much to the left, her pointy nose to the right and the tip aimed up a bit, and her teeth’s size and sharpness were randomised. And then there were the hairy warts, randomly sprinkled all over her.

And yet, the design would’ve just been ugly if it weren’t for the soul within. Drawn or even realistically animated by the best CGI artists this would just be a monster, but the smell and movement made this a real flesh and blood being. The detail to her outfit suggested an actual personality, that this hag chose to dress like this herself. And the eyes, the glare of glee, malice and wariness, those were real emotions.

Boss battle!

You have discovered the lair of a Borough Boss! Put your game faces on ladies and gentlemen! Aaaand Here. We. Go!

A whole slew of player images popped into view, only the strongest at regular size while most of the weaklings were reduced to a quarter to keep things short. Darryl was in the group of people with half-sized portraits while the rest of his party got full honours.

On the other side was a depiction of the crone, a snarling rat and two shadowy figures with a big white question mark over their indistinguishable silhouettes.

It’s a Mud Hag!

Level 15 Borough Boss!

No creature that lurks in the dank swamps, not even the legendary Nine-Headed Hydra, is as notoriously feared as the mighty Swamp Hag! With their ancient powers and relics, their sly cunning and their surprising overwhelming strength, no Hag vacates an area of meddling adventurers and non-cultist farmers like a Swamp Hag! Even without the immense power-up that they can gain through the formation of a coven, people tend to avoid swamps just on the off-chance that there is a Swamp Hag living there!

This is not a Swamp Hag! Good for you, because those Hags can slay crawlers twice their level! This is their much weaker, dumber, unprepared and more inbred cousin the Mud Hag! Below the Swamp Hag, the Bog Hag and even the rare Mangrove Hag, Mud Hags are the swamp-infesting hillbillies that copy their superiors’ tricks and try to hype up their own powers in a way that makes them come off as pathetic and weak instead! They kidnap children because that’s what Swamp Hags do, unable to steal the kid’s youth and instead just making a nice broth! They get familiars as guard dogs, not to create a fine spy whose eyes the Hag can see through! They make little carved bombs and curses, but no relics worthy of epic tales!

Still, Mud Hags hold one thing over all of the other hags. After centuries of inbreeding to create their most desired form, no hag is as ugly as a Mud Hag! And these vain creatures want to be ugly, so let it sink in that these bitches are born uglier than Swamp Hags that can spend centuries and legendary ingredients on rituals to enhance their appearance! As a result, any Mud Hag that lives in the same swamp as an envious Swamp Hag gets treated as some dumb bimbo to be picked on!

After that only somewhat useful description, the world unfroze and the Hag cackled gleefully.

Ben: dude, whats up with borough bosses and grandmas?

Raphael: Probably just a coincidence.

“Oh my! Seems like I get to have some fun after all!” She cheered. “This place has been so dead without you, but now I’ve got all these fun little adventurers to play with!”

A streak of flame struck her in the chest, and a moment later three projectiles followed.

The hag snarled and jumped out of her seat right into the swamp before her, causing a large splash and completely disappearing from view.

“Guys, there’s a force field here and it’s slowly pushing us into the Boss Room!” Eva shouted from behind.

“Advance! They’re not going to let us snipe her from here!” Mr. Geruet shouted, clearly reluctant to follow his own command but resigning himself to step into the muddy bog anyway.

Darryl ran straight ahead to where the Hag had been, while others fanned out behind him. Fighters like Raphael and Elise were already ahead of him, while the rogues spread to the sides and the spellcasters would go ahead just far enough that those behind them could get past.

The Hag hadn’t surfaced again, but they charged at her last position anyway. The charge went well, thanks to the swamp only being ankle-deep. Still difficult terrain and the mud splashed over their clothes with every step, but it was manageable.

And then the Hag rose up right in front of Darryl, ignoring that the puddle she came out of clearly wasn’t that deep. From up close, it was suddenly a lot more apparent that she was over two meters tall.

“Hi there, pretty boy!” She cackled. “What brings you to my part of the woods?”

Darryl raised his shield and braced himself, and then the utter revulsion of her appearance hit him. She’d been ugly when he saw her from a distance, but up close she was-

You’ve been hit with Cowering like a Bitch! Duration variable!

Sometimes it’s a magical spell spammed by a barely daunting crawler, sometimes the natural appearance or size of a monster is enough to make you shit your pants, and occasionally you see the godlike aura of an almighty AI looking over the shoulder of a sexy stud with feet to die for! Whatever the case, this effect brings out your inner pussy and turns your Fight or Flight response into Flight or Freeze!

For the duration of this effect, all your attack skills have been halved, you cannot willingly move closer to the source of your fear, and there is a chance that you’ll freeze up as if under the Nailed to the Ground effect!

The Hag smiled broadly, and she somehow became even more ugly. It was almost as if he was zooming in on her face as her eyes swelled up and her wrinkles turned into gashes while she… she…

New Achievement! Second Chances!

This place is deadly. I know that. The audience knows that. You know that. Or at least I may hope so, I’ve worked really hard to give you that exact impression. But few things are as deadly as… Summoning gods, pissing on the second floor, accelerated adventures, calling Borant names, cajoling with Elites, and like a hundred other things. Hm, guess that this isn’t as deadly a threat as the other stuff you have to deal with on a daily basis. Still, this is an all or nothing effect, so don’t get too comfortable surviving it the first time!

Reward: You just survived an insta-kill effect, extending the low expectancy of your life is your reward.

Your party member Crawler J. Phartin just died! Bummer!

Your party member Crawler Carl Vagaton just died! Bummer!

Your party member Crawler Pierre Sacks just died! Bummer!

Your party member Crawler Fiona Kessels 2 just died! Bummer!

The Hag grabbed one of the rat skulls hanging from her left arm and ripped off the hairband. The skull began to glow softly as she threw it at Darryl’s face.

He raised his shield, and the skull exploded while barely dinting his health pool. She huffed in disappointment, the exhale turning into a pained snarl halfway when the others located her and used their ranged attacks.

The Hag glared in the direction of the first attack, and then stared oddly. It was a lot less terrifying when you saw it from the side, but the three notifications of people dying kept it from being funny.

More attacks poured in, and the hag took a dive back into the mud. Darryl quickly stabbed where she disappeared, but his spear struck a layer of thick sand underneath the mud puddle.

“Careful, she can submerge wherever she wants!” Darryl shouted. “Depth of the ground is irrelevant, even if we can stand there!”

“Over here!” Someone shouted, and more notifications of death appeared while those with range fired potshots.

“Everyone form small groups! There’s no point chasing her like this, all melee units get to a group of ranged and spellcasters!” Mr. Geruet shouted.

Darryl looked around and quickly ran to the nearest girl with a slingshot that he saw.

Somewhere to his left the Hag appeared, shrieked in surprise when someone attacked her undeterred by her frighten aura, and then threw another idol that turned into toxic green smoke.

To his right, he saw Small and Tall attack a charging lvl5 Dire Rat, Small kicking it in the face to stop it dead in its tracks before Tall cleaved the vermin in half with his greatsword.

The Hag wailed in anguish and emerged right next to the two, grabbing Small’s face and pressing it against her own as she sneered at him.

Your party member Crawler Ronald Busby just died! Bummer!

Tall shouted hoarsely and swung his greatsword, striking the Hag and scoring a deep gash that knocked her health into the yellow. His sword slashed through two of the bone charms, causing one to explode in a bright flash of light that blinded the man and the hag both, while the other fizzled out.

The blinded Hag dove back into the mud, and for a few seconds nothing happened. There were still people in the hallway, the force field halfway done shoving them out, while others were trudging through the mud to get to the solid ground around the cottage.

As Tall collapsed to his knees grabbing Small’s lifeless body and letting out a hoarse scream, the Hag emerged elsewhere and more notifications of dead party members popped up.

Amidst this putrid bog filled with corpses and desperate crawlers fighting for their lives, Darryl lamented the death of the strategic plan they came up with and the optimism he had when they entered.