Our two parties began to nervously creep toward the enemy, with Samusk and Tarrak positioned at our lead. Tiny and I were next, flanking the warlock, who followed closely behind. Everyone else followed a few feet behind us, strongest positioned at the front, weakest at the back. This arrangement was not by accident: Kriabal was crucial to the plan, and as the group’s most resilient members, Tiny and I would have the best chance of deflecting the tendrils if the ugly bastard chose to ignore our ‘peasant’ bait and await a more substantial target.

Nyx was not pleased with her role as a back-seat general but knew better than to argue the point. As a combatant who could barely hold herself upright let alone fight, she was lucky to be included in the advance at all. (If ‘lucky’ was really the right word.) Although I have to admit, I was glad to have her along. On the exterior, I was the brave commander, leading his noobish troops into battle. But inside, I was pissing my pixels. (Not literally, of course. Because I’m you know, manly and shit.)

Wordlessly, we continued our shuffle toward our inevitable gruesome deaths. The land shark (well-practiced in the limits of its own deadly reach) watched the mass of bodies approach, regarding us with too many eyes as we nervously advanced on its position. Thankfully, it seemed that I was giving Satan’s turd too much credit when I suggested that Tiny and I guard the warlock. The moment our front line was within the beast’s range, two bone-tipped tentacles lashed out with uncanny speed, simultaneously piercing Samusk and Tarrak’s avatars in a sickening explosion of gore. They didn’t even have time to scream.

“Now Kriabal,” I cried.

The warlock rushed past us, positioning himself between the ruined bodies and the tendrils that had claimed their lives. He immediately cast freeze, catching both in the spell’s area of effect. Ice encased the deadly limbs and their trophies alike, dragging them to the floor with a heavy clunk. Realizing its error, the land shark tried to withdraw its vulnerable appendages, but not without difficulty. Meanwhile, Kriabal continued to pile on layer after layer of magically generated ice, slowing its attempted retreat down further.

“Don’t let it drag its limbs back within the third tentacles range,” I cried, pointing to the mutilated tendril as it thrashed wildly nearby.

“What the fuck do you think I’m tryin’ to do?” came the warlock’s tetchy reply.

“If our warlock isn’t up to the task, let’s slow their retreat the old-fashioned way,” bellowed Nyx from somewhere behind me. “Swordsmen, barbarians, get out there and slash those two bastard tendrils to ribbons. But don’t sever them from the ice, it’s the only thing weighing them down. And don’t stray into the third tentacles reach. It may not have a sharpened tip like the others, but if it hits you, you’ll damn well know about it. Shade, Tiny, hold back a moment. You’ll be needed up front as tanks.”

Put on a brave face, Shade. No one wants to see you wet yourself on the field of battle…

I did my best to look stoic. Rep was everything in this world, after all. And although she was probably about to send me charging off to my death, at least Nyx was doing the heavy lifting, making my role as a general (albeit a proxy leader and little more) easier than I’d possibly imagined it could be. And for someone who was more accustomed to being a lackey, that was fine by me. Satisfied that the amazon seemed to have the other noobs under control I turned to address my fellow tank.

“Hey, axe-hole. You up for returning to tentacle severing duty, then?”

He enthusiastically nodded in response, declaring: “you bet yer noob ass, swords-bitch.”

“Swords-bitch? Oi, that’s General Swords-bitch to you, you glorified meat shield.”

I returned my gaze to General Nyx, just to be sure that she was ready for us to rush off to engage the enemy directly. But if there was some greater strategy reserved for us, we wouldn’t be hearing about it anytime soon. The amazon was hanging slackly between her two helpers, eyes closed and muscular body limp.

Unconscious again? For fuck’s sake! So much for my back-seat general. Guess I’d better step up again before Tiny takes notice of the leadership vacuum and tries to take over.

“Take Kraitos with you,” I announced, returning my attention to the hard-headed barbarian. “He’s too powerful to attack the weaker end of the tendrils anyway-”

“Too powerful?” balked Tiny. “No such thing in a boss battle.”

“Use your head, you dumb lug. With those axes, he might accidentally sever the tip of the tentacle and free the bastard from the ice in the process.” I turned to the half-orc, mouthing the word ‘sorry’ for sticking him with the orc-aphobic asshole of a tank, then continued. “Kraitos, make sure the Conan wannabe focuses on severing the shorter tendril, it’s the only real threat to us at the moment. Given half the chance it’ll attempt to drag you into its jaws, so bring a swordsman to help keep it off your backs. And be careful.”

“Shoulda known yeh’d chicken out, swords-bitch,” snarked Tiny with a grin. “But good call, sendin’ the disposable h’orc in yer place. SkullFucker, get yer ass over here, yer with us.”

“Me?” balked the cowardly barbarian.

“No arguments. Yer my pet project. We’ll make a proper warrior outta yeh yet.”

As Tiny and Kraitos charged off with a reluctant SkullFucker in tow, I tried not to dwell on his accusation of my cowardice. Yes, I was scared, but I had more than my own wellbeing to consider: someone had to lead the troops, and like it or not, I was more experienced in boss encounters than any of them. It was with that thought that I realized the dumb fuck had buggered off without allocating roles to his own battle-hungry party. Quickly taking advantage, I ordered the two swordswomen and his other barbarian to join my men on limb-hacking duty. Then I addressed Trok and Grimmie, ordering them to leave the fight and to start hauling slabs of granite up to the upper balcony, the heavier and more pointed the better. The order was met with the obvious question: why?

“That thing will get enraged again before it reaches zero,” I replied, pointing to the balcony overhead. “If it chases us again, I want to draw it somewhere we can attack from.”

Before it reaches zero. Listen to me. I’m talking like we actually stand a chance of surviving this shit-show.

The two half-orcs promptly got to work. Our sword-wielders and their rabble reinforcements were still hacking away at the boss’s vulnerable limbs, and Kriabal was hard at work reinforcing the beast’s icy bonds, so I turned my attention to the other magic users present: the Gun mage, the witch, and my cowardly apprentice.

“Harry, I want you by my side where I can see you. As for the rest of you, I need you standing under that balcony and ready to draw the boss’s ire with ranged attacks.”

“Why in the unholy hell would we do that?” balked the witch.

“Why do you think the half-orcs are filling up that ledge with heavy rocks?” I asked, pointing to the struggling workers as they positioned a three-foot shard of stone precariously on the balcony’s edge.

“Landslide,” grinned the witch. She began cackling, clapping her hands together like an excited (albeit elderly) schoolgirl.

“Dunno what you’re so pleased about, love,” added a nervous-looking gun mage. “It’s obvious what the noob’s about to ask of us.” He turned to me with an accusing glance. “You want us to be the bloody bait, don’t you?”

I awkwardly nodded, then placed a hand on each of their shoulders.

“I’m not going to lie to you both. Your role in this is going to be dangerous…”

I was interrupted by the witch’s laughter. “Look around us, twinko” she announced with a sweeping gesture of her scrawny arm. “This whole damned scenario is dangerous.”

I nodded in agreement. “We can’t risk the healer and Kriabal is occupied. As our only other fighters with ranged attacks, you’re the only ones left who can draw aggro from a distance-”

“Relax, twinko,” chortled the witch, giving me a playful punch in the arm. “We should be capable o’ getting’ the ugly fuck’s attention when th’ time comes.” She gestured to her arcane associate. “Buffalo Bill ‘ere can hit it wiv a few mana shots, jus’ t’ let it know where we are. In th’ meantime, I’ll charge an attack spell with a bit more oomph. It won’t be much by th’ warlock’s standards, but it should get th’ job done”

“Thank you, ah...” I hesitated, ashamed to realize that I didn’t even know the name of the person who I was potentially sending to her death. I quickly glanced above the crone’s head.

“Agooma. And what about you, Gunner? You okay with this? If you’re not up to the task, I’d rather know now than in the heat of the moment.”

His expression betrayed the words that he spoke, but the gun mage professed to be onboard. With that I thanked them both, leaving them to take up their unenviable position as boss bait.

-[ The confidence you have instilled in those around you has caused your reputation to increase. Reward: rep buff +1 for the duration of the allegiance, or until an action is committed that negates this bonus. ]-

Only for the duration of the party’s existence? Well, that was disappointing, given the temporary nature of the alliance in question.

I guess I need to do something impressive to make it stick. Like murder me a land shark, for example.

Speaking of big ugly, it had evidently grown wise to the futility of its current strategy. With its hybrid minion’s dead and the majority of its gangly limbs pinned to the ground and under siege, it began to switch to a new tactic: get up close and personal. The land shark’s two powerful hind legs began digging into the floor, pushing the hulking beast toward us. It lacked the speed and urgency of its enraged state, but it wouldn’t be long before it closed in enough for the mutilated tendril to reach my army of swords-noobs, and the last thing I needed to worry about was having my war-party dragged into its imposing trap-like mouth.

I turned to summon the arcane contingent, but they were well ahead of me. A crackle of arcane gunfire flew across the room, sparking off the beast’s toughened hide. It was followed by a swirling bolt of witchcraft, a purple flame that burst into embers upon contact with the boss’s flank. The damage was negligible: switching the beast’s aggro to the pair was going to be a lot tougher than I’d hoped. Hell, it was even ignoring Tiny and Kraitos as they continued to hack away at its vulnerable side. That suggested that freeing its ice ensnared limbs had now taken priority above all else. The beast was evidently smarter than I’d given it credit for. That meant that if we were going to draw its aggro and lead it into our haphazard trap, we needed to hit it with something substantial. I looked down at my arcane blade and sighed.

Dammit, I guess if you want a job done...

“Listen up everyone, I’m going to-”

My announcement was interrupted by a high-pitched scream. The kind that no leader wants to hear from within their own ranks

Oh come on, what now?

I turned to the source of the pain-addled cry and yup, it was just as I’d expected. Everything was going to hell again. One of Nyx’s helpers was lying on the floor, his neck broken and his body contorted into a shape that it definitely wasn’t designed for, orcan anatomy or not. The other zero, a middle-aged human, was firmly in her grasp, struggling to be free of the amazon’s powerful grip as she took a moment to study his avatar.

Under normal circumstances, I would have been overjoyed to see her standing under her own power again, but these were not normal circumstances. Far from it. For a start, her mouth was frothing with a thick ink-like substance. When you add the fact that her unhealthy pale complexion was now as white as milk, oh and the fact that she just murdered one of my men in cold blood, I was not feeling particularly jubilant over our strategist’s miraculous recovery.

Losing interest in the squirming zero, the amazon released him, then almost decapitated him with one impressive strike: an inhumanly powerful uppercut that opened up multiple lacerations in the non-combatant, shredding his face in the process. I quickly realized why the blow had been so lethal. Her arm and fist were now laced in tiny bone-like protrusions. The look was worryingly familiar to me: she was growing the spikes of a damned hybrid.

Aww, crap no. Because this is all I fucking need.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard a pained cry that could only have come from a half-orc. Kraitos. Instinctively I wanted to rush to help my builder friend, but time was not a luxury I could afford. Most of the fighters on my side of the chamber were weaker than me, and if the mutated amazon got her hands on them, it would be a massacre. Fearing that the ‘infection’ might be spread through our party link, I called up my status menu, promptly booting the amazon from our war-party. Then I allowed myself a quick glance back at my troops, bellowing one final round of orders before rushing to meet the threat from within.

“Kriabal, the two main tendrils seem to be under control, but the other one is bludgeoning our tanks hard. Go freeze the fucker. Agrooma, you told me you could charge something powerful to grab that bastard’s attention. Hurry the fuck up about it…”

Deep down, I knew that the gesture the old crone waved back at me wasn’t a suggestion that she only needed one more minute. But she wasn’t technically my subordinate, so it wasn’t my place to admonish her. I nervously began to wonder if she’d overstated her capabilities, and that weak blast of magic I’d witnessed earlier was all that the witch was capable of. But I didn’t have time to micro-manage, not with a damn hybrid readying itself to cut through my noobish troops. With that, I turned to face it again.

By now the hybrid had fallen to her knees and was rifling through the bloody corpses of the fallen zeros. But this was no search for loot: she was plundering their very corpses, tearing out their entrails and feeding on the poor bastards. That was more than I could stand. The duo had bravely stepped forward to aid my party, despite their obvious vulnerability. They deserved better than to have their bodies desecrated like this. I was about to rush forward to strike her down when I noticed something odd about my new foe. (Oh all right, something odder.) I could swear that I could see something squirming under her skin. It crawled up her avatar, the skin stretching as it made its way up her throat. My former ally began to choke, spitting a mouthful of tar and what looked like a fist-sized cockroach into her hands. She cradled it like one might hold a tiny kitten. I stared at the roach-like creature in disgust. The final straw was when she placed it into the ruined corpse of the human zero.

Holy shit, that’s probably the mob that spread the infection to her in the first place. I’d just assumed that they all latch on, like the hellhounds earlier. I never even considered that something might have burrowed inside her.

Now I understood why Nyx had been acting so strangely. This was no ordinary ‘poison’ debuff. The tiny mob had been slow to take control of her powerful avatar but had eventually succeeded. As she looked to me with bleeding crimson eyes, there was no denying that her unwanted passenger was now firmly in the driving seat. And worse, it was spreading itself.

I downed the last of my mana potions and willed the precious energy into my arcane blade. As I did this the hybrid began to scream in agony, a glitching stream of words and code that almost made my ears bleed. She clasped the wrist of her shard-covered arm, her eyes fixated on another bulge beneath her skin. Seconds later, a length of bloody bone burst through and began to sprout from her wrist. But unlike the other jagged protrusions, this one kept going, until it was almost the length of my sword blade.

Gross. Oh, and what the actual fuck? They can grow their own weapons, too? If I’d realized she could do that I wouldn’t have dismissed Kriabal so quickly.

Nyx slowly returned to her feet and pointed the grotesque blade directly at me. Meanwhile, the infected zero began to convulse at her feet. His ruined body had been attempting to knit itself back together and was now awkwardly struggling to drag itself upright.

His zero status must make him easier to turn. Shit, we need to keep him away from the other zeros or we’ll have a damn epidemic on our hands.

The broken human rose to the amazon’s side, and the pair shrieked in unison. And oddly enough, despite my inexperience, my next order required absolutely no deliberation.

“Um, Medusa, can you come over here for a minute? I have a feeling that I’m going to need some backup.”