Elise

Well, at least the elite was making himself useful.

Aside from that, this situation was fucking us over as usual. There were four bosses left to deal with, one of them was a borough fucking elite, and they caught us flatfooted. The bosses would be somewhere around the 55th to 62nd floor, my ass!

Okay, Thomas only made a guess, he never said he was sure of it. And it wasn’t anyone’s fault but the damn ruckus of the tower groaning and creaking that we hadn’t heard five bosses argue with one another until we ran into them.

Livia said that Neighbourhood Bosses were between lvl12-16 on average on this floor, and I couldn’t help but notice that none of these guys were on the lower side of that estimate. The elites of course were well above what they should be.

Azriel got stronger too, because of course he did. He gained two levels since we last saw him, despite him grinding the same trash mobs as the rest of us and him being a much higher level to boot. Elites were bullshit.

I was pretty sure he hadn’t even gotten the harpy queen’s experience yet, either. When we entered the room to find five monsters gawking at us, he appeared from the shadows and lopped one of her wings clean off with his celestial blade. The AI was right, a paladin that could dishonourably sneak attack was bullshit.

Sirenth the Harpy Queen was probably out of the fight. The old woman’s face was frozen in fear and surprise, already intending to run from this fight entirely. She looked much more human in her proportions than the Serentile Harpies, though her wrinkled face was still very much goblinoid with the longest and pointiest nose of them all. Really would’ve preferred her without the fully exposed sagging breasts.

While she was still on the boss side of the match-up screen, the AI seemed to disregard her presence too. I had to open her description to read it, rather than it automatically being narrated to us. She, the goblin and the boar demon thing weren’t elites, fortunately.

Griss – Gloomy Stalker Goblin

Level 14 Neighbourhood Boss!

Goblins are a feared and avoided race, because they’re batshit crazy and love big explosions. You don’t pick a fight with the guys that volunteer for kamikaze attacks! But when going waaaaay~ back to before we invented gunpowder, goblins were a lot more pathetic! Amongst the lowest and weakest races, they had to rely on every advantage and trick they can pull in order to compete. Medieval goblins were either archers or rogues to avoid direct combat. The goblin stalkers are the latter, excelling in shadow combat and shivving some blind bitches before they can say ‘Bad touch!’

Griss here is the leader of a small and not that successful tribe of goblins who went all in on the rogue bit. Turns out that it’s really hard to defend your camp against counterattacks when no one knows how to fight up close! After several humiliating defeats forced them to abandon most of their resources and shinies to wander aimlessly until they shook off their pursuers, Griss now seeks to get some non-goblin allies to act as meatshields for his tribe. But as usual, he bit off a bit more than he can chew when a certain ghoul approached him with an offer!

Griss looked like he was overcompensating for something. The goblin’s dark leathers looked functional, but were decorated with a few too many skulls and daggers to look intimidating. His face seemed to be trapped in a perpetual scowl of indignation, repressed fear and angry posturing. He might be dangerous if you lost sight of him, but in the light this guy looked like the 14-year-old try-hard emo equivalent of a goblin rogue.

Biggest – Second-generation Tannaruk Demoar thin-blood Chieftain

Level 16 Neighbourhood Boss!

Whenever demons are summoned into this world, they only intend to kill, eat, rape, pillage and then kill some more! Occasionally they spice things up with some desecration, but these tend to be a demon’s big 5 things to do on a road trip! What you’re looking at here is the result of option number 3, the outcome of a demoar getting it on with an orc and letting her live afterwards for whatever reason. Considering the average demoar’s appearance, I can assure you it wasn’t consensual! Then the demon-spawn had some kids of themselves, and those kids managed to get laid as well. That might sound like an impressive feat for creatures looking like this, until you learn that Tannaruk can also plough boars to produce offspring.

Biggest is the runt of his litter, his seven brothers all bigger than him! And so are his cousins! But as his name already tells you, he’s not sore over this or anything! He’s just easily agitated and posturing most of the time for completely different reasons. And him climbing up from the 6th floor and ploughing every boar he could find in this backwater region is a healthy initiative to spread his family’s presence, not a rebellious teen’s solution to being called a runt all the time!

This guy looked a bit more infernal and powerful than the boarmen we fought before, his antlers large and pointy and his muscles bulging underneath red skin and thick hair. He wore armour that seemed more for show than protection, and his greatsword would probably act more as a cudgel.

I disregarded them. One of them was brute strength and rather stupid, the other one was sneaky and cowardly. They were the weakest ones here, and probably wouldn’t be that dangerous. In comparison, of course.

I wondered if the dungeon applied the Inverse Ninja Law? Probably not. At least not for us, because the AI never missed a chance to screw us over. Still, I had to keep my eyes on the two elite bosses we already knew we’d be facing. I was the tank now that Darryl wasn’t here, and you didn’t charge the fodder when tanking.

Which meant that I had to take on either the worg or the ghoul, whichever one wouldn’t jump Azriel. Hopefully they both attacked him once time stopped being frozen.

Thomas: Stick to the plan. Alexa, you too. Ben, hurry up because things started early.

Ben: I noticed, the world froze all of a sudden.

Ben: Three or four?

Elise: All fucking five, and Azriel.

Ben: Even the Borough Boss? Damn.

Time unfroze and Azriel finished lopping off the harpy’s wing. The others all drew their weapons, but needed a moment to figure out who to attack.

“Back up, let’s try holding them off at the staircase’s entrance so that none of them can slip around us.” I said as I readied my bat.

Thomas backed away and I slowly stepped back as well, eyeing the bosses. The moment that we went on the defensive, they all aimed their attention on a very displeased Azriel.

“At first I was afraid, I was petrified.” Alexa began to sing, and I got a notification of my Con and Str being buffed along with a temporary skill that increased damage resistance the lower my health got. Nice, exactly what we expected to get with this song. I saw that one of my old rage-build’s damage reduction skills temporarily jumped up one level too.

“Damn it, help me slay these monsters!” Azriel shouted at us as he jumped back, Shalanter’s claws still managing to scratch him. The Borough Boss was intimidatingly fast, and even the superficial wounds that he managed to inflict dropped Azriel’s health visibly and caused first degree burns the size of one’s thumb around the wounds. Shalanter smiled and licked the blood off his nails.

“Thinking I could never live without you by my side.”

“I said, help me!” Azriel ordered, put on the defensive as the five bosses all aimed their full attention on him.

“We should probably just leave while they’re distracted.” I said. “See if we can pick them off one by one, or at least under better circumstances, after they take out Azriel.”

“But I spent oh so many nights, thinking how you did me wrong.”

“These are monsters planning to destroy the whole country in a tide of death and destruction!” Azriel shouted. “Their leader is a vile cursed one, evil by even the loosest of standards! In the name of the Heavens, it is your duty to slay them!”

You’ve been struck by the Oath of Duty!

As a good-aligned race and class, a paragon has conscripted you to slay evil! Your Intelligence and Charisma scores have been reduced by 50% for one minute for refusing the call, and you are now under the Taunt effect for 30 seconds aimed at the nearest evil creature! Resisting this oath will result in further penalties! Going along will buff your Strength and Dexterity by 20% for one minute!

Elites are bullshit!

“I grew strong, I learned how to carry on!”

I felt my feet move by themselves as I charged at the worg, a senseless and foolish charge only benefitting that arsehole Azriel. I quickly copy pasted the message into the chat as Thomas enquired what the hell I was doing, and tried to reason how to survive this latest bout of bullshit being thrown my way.

___ ___ ___ ___

Thomas

Well, this is an unanticipated complication.

You’ve been struck by the Oath of Duty!

As a neutral or evil-aligned race and class, you don’t give a shit! You can get a 20% bonus to Strength and Dexterity for one minute by attacking any of the designated villains anyway!

I watched Elise charge forwards and quickly re-evaluated our plans. Not only was she forced to attack recklessly, she was forced to attack the worg. The one enemy we agreed on should be avoided if at all possible.

Plan A it was, then.

“Now you’re back, from outer space!”

I turned around and ran down the stairs. Assuming the battlefield wasn’t going to shift around beyond what I could predict, collapsing the floor underneath the bosses and splitting them up was our best bet. And I couldn’t do that on this floor without inflicting friendly fire.

Ben ran up the stairs underneath me as I left. Good, at least we were all here, now. Well, almost all of us.

It would have to do.

___ ___ ___ ___

Ben

I ran past Thomas, having to duck slightly to not bump heads with the ceiling spider. I started sprinting the moment that the world stopped being frozen, and it seemed like I hadn’t missed much.

“And I just walked in to find you here, with that sad look upon your face!”

Elise charged the worg, the boar-demon-thing staring slack-jawed at Miho’s hypno eyes while Alexa sang some ancient song I faintly recognised.

The boar made for a good target, even if the spell would break once I damaged him. The effect ending wouldn’t matter if I instantly killed him.

Better not. This guy looked tough. Not hardy or well-protected, but the kind of champion who was too stupid to die as he just stubbornly soldiered through by sheer constitution score. Not the best target for an assassin.

“I should have changed those stupid locks! I should have made you leave your keys! If I knew for just one second, you’d be back to bother me!”

The Borough Boss and Azriel were fighting, both dodging and slashing at each other with remarkable finesse. Shalanter was looking confident, but Azriel was holding his ground despite being ten levels lower than the Borough Boss. If either of them won, we’d be in big trouble.

That left the goblin, the harpy and the worg. I didn’t see the goblin, so the harpy it was. I ran towards her, and quickly took out an item I thought I’d never use. With our potions and scrolls, this item seemed rather obsolete. Except of course, this balloon had no specific kind of target where the scrolls required a crawler or at least an ally.

The Harpy Queen was startled as the water balloon filled with ice-cold healing potion hit her, bringing her back up to full. Hopefully this would deny Azriel any experience upon her death, or at least reduce it.

Before the ugly hag could react to the development, I kicked her in the chest. She was surprisingly light, though I guess I should’ve seen it coming given she was a hollow-boned birdperson, and was shoved more than toppled. Didn’t matter, I’d stab her all the same.

She immediately shrieked a loud mournful cry as my blade found her chest, and it took me a few seconds to realise she was supposed to be singing. Damn, these harpies really sucked at it.

You’ve been struck with Scoffing, Compelled to get A Refund and Exiting the audience! Damn!

You are beholding a performance so terrible that not even the most supportive mom can stay seated and listen! You just have to leave and not listen to this garbage!

I noticed that I wasn’t forced to turn tail immediately, so I jumped backwards and then ran to Elise and the others who weren’t affected.

“Just turn around now, you’re not welcome any more!”

Your ally’s song blocked out the Serentile Harpy Queen’s Awful Wail effect! That’s one benefit to ignoring that little dial on the side and just blasting at full volume!

I regained full control over my body again as Alexa’s song got louder than the harpy’s and I turned around with my crossbow already aimed. The Serentile Queen tried to dodge, but a bolt found her chest. Paralyzed! appeared underneath her name. Nice, my crossbow did that for 2% of my attacks, but this was the first time it happened against something stronger than a regular grinding mob.

I dashed back forward again as her rasping wails stopped, and continued my stabbing. Her already low health plummeted rapidly, and the paralysed harpy’s eyes could only stare at me in fright as she died.

“Shit.” I muttered as Azriel jumped up a level. Guess she should’ve left combat entirely for me to negate his experience share. Still, his hateful look told me that I sheared off quite a bit of it.

“Alright, now where’s that pesky goblin?” I wondered as I looked across our little chaotic battlefield.