The boss of the dungeon revealed itself. It was similar to the small cats that now lay dead in the cavern. As well as this, it had two tentacle appendages that waved lazily above its head, like scorpion tails that were getting ready to strike. Unlike a scorpion, the tentacles were tipped in a pad that was covered in silver spikes on one side. A smack from one of the tentacles would not only hurt, but also rend flesh horrifically.

To Ril, however, this boss monster was familiar. It looked identical to the powder beast that had protected him on his journey through the Dread Thicket and had gifted him Mirror Image back before he had found Gemma and Evelyn.

“What the hell is it doing here.” Ril said, mostly to himself.

“That’s the boss, Ril. But it came from the wrong side.” A bit of panic could be heard in Evelyn’s voice. “Boss mobs never leave the boss room. This is bad Ril. It’s blocking our only way out.”

Ril pulled himself out of his confusion at seeing the familiar predator, and realized that the boss did not look friendly. Its eyes flashed over the carnage that remained of what Ril presumed was its children. Its tail lashed back and forth as it stalked further into the room. It looked at Evelyn, then back to Ril, then finally focused fully on Evelyn.

Another growl reverberated across the room. The cat’s whiskers pulled back, revealing row upon row of oh so familiar teeth. Then with a suddenness only seen by members of the feline race, it pounced towards Evelyn.

“Plan B! Plan B!” Evelyn screamed. She fell back, summoning a swarm of frozen projectiles to push back the boss. The boss didn’t seem to care, as the projectiles shattered useless against its toughened skin. It chased after Evelyn relentlessly, forcing her to desperately retreat or get ripped to shreds by its razor sharp claws.

Ril summoned his clone, sending it over to Evelyn to relieve some pressure of the cat's relentless assault. Then he charged the flank of the boss, intending to impale it with his shortsword. Hopefully such a wound would slow it down enough that Evelyn would be able to better fend it off.

Before he even managed to cross the short distance, Ril’s clone poofed out of existence as one of the boss’s tentacles blasted through it. Ril shook his head, this boss was ridiculous, and summoned up another clone.

Then with a roar of pent up fear, Ril brought his shortsword down on the muscled flank of the boss. Instead of embedding deep within the beast, and releasing a torrent of blood as he expected, the blade sunk in only half an inch or so, barely cutting through the thick black fur that covered the boss.

Ril looked dumbfounded at the meager wound he had managed to inflict on the boss. As he watched the result of his effort, the wound slowly filled up with silver blood. Much too slow to realistically slow down the beast. The moment of inaction cost him. While stationary the twin tentacles that had so easily destroyed his first clone, switched their focus to him. Whistling through the air they collided nearly simultaneously with Ril.

Ril choked. His air violently left as his lungs nearly collapsed from the force of the blow. The screech of steel on steel echoed within the cavern, as the spikes on the tentacles scraped mercilessly across Ril meager body armor. He tumbled across the room. Darkness filled his vision as the momentum from the blow dissipated. He curled up, the pain nearly overwhelming his ability to focus on the battle. Faintly he heard Evelyn call out his name, but it barely registered.

Dizzy and confused, Ril realized that he had once again dropped his sword. Luckily his shield was strapped to his arm so it couldn’t fall off.

Ril’s whole body hurt. As he looked up, his vision was briefly obscured by silver blood that steadily dribbled down from a cut on his forehead. Wiping it off he inspected himself for injuries. Luckily, it didn’t seem that the boss’s blow had broken anything too valuable. He would just have a massive black and blue bruise on the morrow.

Evelyn was still being chased around the cavern. The clone that Ril had sent to help her had long since been destroyed by the cat’s terrifying speed. The boss did seem slightly worse for wear. Other than the small cut on its right flank that Ril had inflicted, there were numerous long thin scratches across its shoulders from Evelyn’s barrage of sharp icicles. Also the boss was limping slightly. At some point during Ril’s impromptu flight lesson, Evelyn had managed to crush one of the delicate digits with her warstaff.

While the boss looked slightly worse for wear. Evelyn was hurt. Her warstaff had a crack down the middle from the blows that she had successfully blocked with it. It was breaking though and wouldn’t be able to withstand many more blows from the freakishly strong boss. Her armor was torn. Right across her belly were three ragged cuts where the cat had managed to get past her defenses and slash her. They didn’t seem that deep since only the center cut was tinged red. Her right arm had a bruise that was already turning blue, and she was clearly favoring her left leg.

“Ril! Get up! You have to get up!” Evelyn was screaming at him, while backpedaling desperately. Ril shook his head trying to clear the fog.

“How the hell are we supposed to kill this thing.” He screamed back. “My attack barely cut through its armor” Getting back to his feet and resummoning his clone. At this point he wondered if there was any point considering how easily the boss was destroying them.

“We don’t!” Evelyn grunted as she blocked a particularly nasty slash from the boss’s paw.

“Ah, Plan C it is.” Ril said, but then immediately realized that maybe he could run but he would never be able to get Evelyn out. The boss was pushing Evelyn around the cavern like she was a mouse. There was no way that she could disengage long enough to sprint towards the exit.

“I’m going to try something.” Evelyn panted, stumbling backwards, avoiding another slash from one of the tentacles. “Run now!”

Ril obediently charged away from the fighting duo towards the tunnel that led deeper into the cave system. He resummoned his clone again, as it once again took a blow meant for Evelyn.

Evelyn jumped back. She threw her broken warstaff at the enraged cat. Then she closed her eyes, and began chanting. The words were incomprehensible to Ril but they seemed to reverberate with power. Immediately, the temperature in the cavern plummeted. Frost began forming everywhere in the room. A vortex formed around the large cat. Ice crystals began forming in the air and were carried around the room at breakneck speeds by the growing vortex.

Ril paused at the entrance to the boss room. Looking back to where the boss was crouching, eyes squinting in the gale as ice spun around it leaving uncountable lacerations across its tough hide. Evelyn for her part had finished casting her spell. She looked wane. Her normally pale countenance was ashen from exhaustion. She turned away from the boss, and stumbled towards Ril and away from the blizzard that she had summoned.

“Come on Evelyn! You can make it” Ril shouted, beckoning madly to her as she fought against the wind. Her hands were tucked underneath her clothes and her shoulders hunched. Even from the relative safety of the tunnel, Ril could feel the frigid sting of the cold air. The wind buffeted Evelyn as she made her way painfully towards Ril.

Then tragedy struck. The ice crystals that swirled violently around the hunched boss, had grown from viscous little knives to heavy bludgeons. One such ice crystal whirled around and slammed right into the back of Evelyn’s head.

Her eyes, which had been focused on Ril, glazed over, and she collapsed jelly-like onto the frozen sandy floor.

“No!” Ril screamed. He jumped forward into the storm. Ice and wind were everywhere. Immediately he felt his skin being cut by thousands of sharp little crystals. Nearly blind, Ril crawled forward and wrapped stiff fingers around her jacket. With all his might, Ril heaved, but didn’t manage to pull her, slipping on the frozen floor.

Ril was struck by an idea. Releasing one frozen hand from her jacket he cast Telekinesis on Evelyn’s still form. Then with all of his might, he pulled with both his muscles and his magic. Using both magic and might, Ril managed to drag Evelyn out of the localized blizzard and into the relative warmth and safety of the tunnel.

By this point, the boss had realized that the storm was not going to end anytime soon and got up from its curled up position. It’s glowing orange eyes focused on Evelyn’s slumped form at the entrance to the boss tunnel. Their inner light pulsing brightly with hatred. Then it hunched it’s formidable shoulders, and charged.

Ril’s eyes widened. This boss was unstoppable. Ril desperately racked his mind for something that would stop the boss’s charge. His sword which he had left behind in the frozen cavern would be useless even if he had managed to keep it. Even if he managed to impale the giant cat, there was no way it would deal enough damage to kill it before the boss tore them to shreds. Summoning a clone, would literally do nothing since it was an illusion, and Telekinesis barely had the strength to drag Evelyn across the slick floor. That only left Spark and Create Snowball.

Just as the boss was about to stretch its neck and take a bite out of Evelyn’s boot, Ril summoned up his reserves and thrust his hand right in the cat’s face. From his hand a stream of white hot sparks erupted, illuminating the startled cat’s face. It flinched. Eyes opening wide from shock at the unexpected light and heat. Then a chunk of ice the size of a fist collided directly with the cat’s open eye.

The boss yowled. It curled in on itself. Desperately trying to protect its face from further injury, it placed one large paw over its bleeding eye.

“Come on Evelyn, we can do this.” Ril panted. He grabbed Evelyn’s limp arm and put it over his shoulder. Then with the screams of the wounded boss echoing behind him, Ril dragged Evelyn slowly into the boss’s room.

* * *

The boss’s sleeping chamber was much like the previous chamber. The ground was mostly flat and covered with a layer of black sand. Intermixed with the black sand there was the silver dust that was present in the previous chamber. On the far end, clearly where the black cat slept, there was a small pile of silver dust. The orange veins on the walls were more numerous and much thicker here. It made the cavern brighter, but at the same time more ominous as the pulsing lights oscillated between pure darkness and very bright orange. Without Evelyn’s light, making out anything with any detail was impossible.

Ril quickly dragged Evelyn up to the far wall and laid her unconscious form gently against the wall. After a cursory inspection, Ril noticed that the chunk of ice that had knocked her unconscious had left a bleeding gash at the back of her head. In the horrible lighting it was hard to tell how serious the wound was, but from how much blood was leaking out it didn’t seem to be that terrible. The worst offender seemed to be the spell that she had used. Her skin looked waxy and the tips of her fingers were turning blue from frostbite.

Ril slumped down next to Evelyn. The cavern only had one exit, which is the one that they had come from. It seemed that an easy escape was not in the cards. Well at least not an escape that avoided the powder beast boss.

Speaking of the boss, the screams of pain from the other had stopped. Fearfully, Ril focused his attention on the portal.

A low growl emanated from the entryway as the boss stalked into the room. The powder beast looked frightful. Thousands of tiny lacerations covered its body. Its fur which had been the deepest black was a silver grey from all of the blood. One of its paws was tucked firmly up against its chest. It used one of its tentacles to hobble carefully into the room.

The most frightening thing about the cat was its face. Where once two glowing slits had menacingly judged the world, now only one eye remained. The other was a shredded mass of torn flesh. Clear liquid intermixed with the silver blood as the blend dripped steadily onto the sandy floor.

Ril carefully got to his feet as the cat stalked closer.

“Woah there kitty cat. We don’t want to fight you. Just want to get out of your home.” Ril said raising his left hand in a grim facsimile of his behavior to the cat in the forest. “You let us out of here and we won’t bother you.”

Amazingly, the boss paused its tenacious hunt. Its uninjured eye focused on Ril, a hint of curiosity peeking through the blood rage. Ril was surprised that talking had worked.

“You let us go and we won’t come back.” Ril said, encouraged. “We don’t want to fight anymore. I’m sure that you don’t want to fight anymore either.”

The cat let out a low purr, and lowered itself painfully onto its hindquarters.

“That’s right.” Ril said. “No need to fight, this was all an accident. We didn’t know you would be in here, and we didn’t mean to kill your kids.” Ril kept on talking trying to be as calming as he could be.

The cat was looking at Ril. Amazingly it seemed almost as if it understood Ril. Every once in a while its sole remaining eye would snap towards Ril’s outstretched hand and then return to Ril’s face.

The cat gave an enormous yawn. Its teeth glinted in the flickering light of the room. Then with a pointed look, the cat stared at Evelyn’s broken form.

Ril looked down on Evelyn. Somehow he understood that the cat wanted to keep her. “No, you can’t have her. I’ll take her with me and we will leave. No more fighting, we will get out of your cave and never come back.”

The cat did not like this. It rose from its haunches and snarled at Ril.

“She is my friend. W-we leave together.” Ril said adamantly, a small quaver in his voice. He raised both of his hands and spread them to block the cat from getting any closer to Evelyn’s fallen form.

Lightning quick, the remaining tentacle that wasn’t supporting the boss’s weight whipped around and collided with Ril’s hip, sending him tumbling out of the way.

“Wait!” Ril screamed. Then with a cough he righted himself so that he wasn’t face first in the sand. “What about a trade!”

The cat which had been about to bite Evelyn, paused. It retreated a step back and faced Ril once more. The expression on its face clearly saying: “I’m listening”.

“Well, last time we met you gave me the Mirror Image ability right? You didn’t use it in this fight so maybe I can give it back to you. I also upgraded it to Mirror Form. So that’s better, right? How about that? I give you Mirror Form and you let both Evelyn and I to leave. Uneaten. You let both of us leave without eating her. Or me. Or either of us.”

The cat seemed to consider this for a moment, then it sat back onto its haunches, clearly agreeing with Ril’s proposal. Ril let out a nervous chuckle. He couldn’t believe this situation. Not only was he talking to a powder beast, but he was negotiating with it.

Slowly. Ril got back to his feet. He reached back to his belt with his right hand. Gripping his knife in a white knuckled grip. Then, he steadily made his way closer to the giant cat.

“I’ve never done this before.” Ril said, again putting on his voice that he would use when talking to a skittish horse. Or a baby. “When you did it to me you bit me. Probably because you needed to touch my blood. So I am just going to place my hand on your snout, which is already covered in blood and do it. Don’t eat me please.”

Ril paused. He didn’t doubt the powder beasts veracity. It hadn’t eaten him in the forest, and seemed to be behaving almost politely given the situation. But Ril didn’t want to lose his Mirror Form ability. Other than the Blood of the Chromagnum it was his only ability that made him special. Evelyn’s first complement to him had been because of this ability. It was what made him special. Without it, Evelyn would leave him behind. Not only was she a princess and he just a poor orphan, but she was also incredibly skilled at cryomancy. What was Ril compared to that?

Ril’s hand touched the slick snout of the giant cat. Considering. Its coarse whiskers brushing gently against his palm. The cat closed its remaining eye. Its gentle purr suffused the air surrounding the two. Ril felt a kinship with this massive predator. It accepted him, even though he had invaded its home. For a moment, Ril reached deep inside and toyed with the Mirror Form ability.

No. Ril thought. I’m human. I want human friends, I want to find a human family. I want to go to Anduin and explore the city and the castle with Evelyn. I don't want to lose the one thing that makes me special.

With all his strength Ril unsheathed his knife and slammed it into the powder beasts throat. The knife slipped in between the thick corded muscle of the giant cat’s throat. The beast’s eye snapped open. A burbling wail of distress escaped from the cat's ruined throat.

Ril jumped backwards removing his knife from the cat’s throat with a vicious twist. Without the blade to plug the wound, it expelled a copious amount of silver blood onto the sandy floor. Unlike the previous wound that Ril had inflicted on the giant cat, this one had clearly hit an artery; blood squirting out, almost as if it was pressurized. Every time the cat’s heart beat, more blood ejected from the fatal wound.

Incredibly, the cat was not dead. It roared, choking half way through the sound. Silver blood sprayed across the chamber. Ril who was desperately backing up was liberally covered in the small droplets.

Instantly, Ril summoned his clone, and dodged right, as his clone went left. The boss hobbled weakly after Ril, sending its tentacles to crush him. The clone dissipated but was instantly resummoned as Ril fell back. Crawling on his butt for a pace, Ril turned onto his knees and sprinted away from the enraged powder beast.

Before he made it to the opposite end of the chamber, Ril heard the beast slump to the ground. After taking three steps after Ril, the beast had collapsed. It’s tentacles twitched weakly as its lifeblood leaked out of the fatal wound in its throat. A growing pool of silver blood reflected the orange lights of the cavern.

The cat let out a mewling cry. Its remaining eye looked fearfully at Ril. Then with one last cry, its remaining breath rattled out. The cat finally stilled after its ferocious display of physicality. Its eye glazed over. The orange glow which had shown so much emotion, faded away, revealing a regular black pupil.

Adrenaline fading, Ril stood staring at the boss monster. Silver white text on a transparent grey background appeared, clouding his vision.

Congratulations you have slain a Powder Beast (Panther Variant)!

Congratulations you have acquired the ability Backstab (Passive)!

Attacks against unsuspecting enemies are more likely to crit.