1:27pm, The Twenty-Fourth Day

The door in front of us was pretty underwhelming in relation to how much effort it took to get to it. It was made of simple spruce wood lined with a silvered trim. Along the edges simple pictograms and syslical letters were carved into the door.

More impressive to me was the long bridge behind us, which was now free of the many golems that had defended it. It crossed the canyon behind us, some tens of meters long and made completely out of citrine and stone. It glowed softly to the touch, each step setting off a wave of orange light through the magical gemstone. It was a familiar bridge, being the very same bridge we had found on the first day together, and if I listened closely I could even faintly hear water running far below.

In front of me, the tired members of our adventuring party lay against the wall catching their breath. Even the mage had gotten a workout in as animated boulders had flown down the narrow bridge, each one threatening to toss us to our deaths far below. Kyo had been essential in getting us across, tempting the golems off the bridge themselves with some risky dodging.

After a few minutes we sat down in a circle to discuss our plan for the boss.

“Alright. From our source, this boss should be pretty open and shut.” Svite opened his journal. “It’s name will be ‘Steelshoe’. In his first phase he mostly attacks using slow but damaging stomps with huge areas of effect. For that I’d like to test if Hans’…” he nodded at me. “... glyphs can block it, but if it doesn’t we will resort to quick hit and run attacks. As well, when we first go in only specific portions of his body are able to take damage. These will look like crystals. Once he takes some damage however, his steel skin will start coming off.” Svite looked between us. “Any questions about the first phase?”

Everybody shook their heads, so Svite continued.

“Once he goes down to half health two crystal guardians will spawn, and Steelshoe will attempt to disengage to heal. Hans, I think you'll be the most fitted to stop him. All you have to do it chip him a few times so that the regeneration halts while the rest of us defeat his mooks. Any questions?”

“Moo..” Kyo began asking.

“Same as mobs.” I interjected.

A question started to formulate in my mind, but when I opened my mouth the mage was already asking it.

“Why would we send Honsol to stop his regeneration instead of having me launch Flare at him while we fight?”

“I’ll want all your damage to burst down the golems. Hans just does the least amount since he doesn’t have any combat skills equipped.” He gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry Hans.”

“Well any combat skills that are useful right now anyway.” Artel remarked.

Svite’s explanation was reasonable however. With no weapon skills I could use and armed only with a knife and fancy letters, I had by far the lowest dps in the group. By keeping the mage focused on the weaker enemies we could destroy them before they did too much damage. Then we could strike at the boss safely.

“That’s fine with me then. I’ll rush him when he retreats.”

With my agreement the mage nodded, but to me he still looked a little uneasy about it. We didn’t really have too much time to argue about it though, so Svite hurriedly moved on to our other plans for the battle. After finalizing those, we moved to the boss door for the final encounter.

All four of us had to push to open the door, and even then I found its weight astonishing. In many video games and movies the large and heavy boss door was a recurring theme, but as none of us had put many points into strength-giving skills this took us much longer than any average protagonist. Eventually we all put our weight on the same door, pushing it open enough for all of us to squeeze past into the room.

This is a massive waste of space. Immediately the size of the room hit me. It was a massive vaguely hexagonal cave large enough to fit at least one of the previous ravines inside it. It was about as tall as one too, and when I looked up I almost couldn’t make out the rocky ceiling among the twisting fog. A sense of vertigo washed over me as I struggled to make sense of its scale, along with the same uneasy feeling as the canyon’s brought.

Huge crystals many meters across were spread throughout the cavern, some of them with runes and unreadable sentences carved into their surfaces. Huge pillars were embedded into the walls at even intervals seemingly holding in the huge expanses of rock. A spiraling pattern of circles decorated the floor, starting from the wall pillars and connected in the center of the room, where a huge block of iron with a number of red crystals attached sat. Around the floor were huge round indentations as if a great weight had fallen and cracked it, indicating Steelshoe’s power.

“We’ll have to do more dungeons if they all end like this.” Kyoura once again gazed around in awe at the various building sized crystals dotting around the cavern.

I didn’t focus on the view as much as something beautiful to behold however, as much as it looked like a pain in the ass to fight in. As I looked around at the dimensions of the room, I could only think about how much room the boss had to run away. If we battled it near the center, whenever I switched over it would probably run over to one of the walls roughly a hundred meters away. If I was to follow through on our plan that would take me way too far from my teammates to get any emergency support. In fact that would probably be too far for the others to even see my health bar. Even after that the room was almost universally flat and featureless, so we wouldn’t be able to use cover to block attacks at all. I had to hope that everyone’s dodging skill was in top shape.

I wasn’t the only one who seemed to think this. The mage and I exchanged an emotionless look of understanding. It was too late to back out now however, as the door slammed shut behind us, locking us in. Until either the boss or we were finished we would stay in here.

As I tried to think of ways to lessen my peril the crystals in the walls began to glow, slowly illuminating the entirety of the room. After a few seconds, their light condensed together and reflected onto the crystals on the chunk of iron in the middle of the cavern, casting the entire chamber into a bloodlike glow. As we approached the chunk of iron it began to rise out of the floor to reveal its true form: a massive crystalline golem over 10 meters tall. Most of its body was a bulky brown rock with interspersed red crystals, but its arms and legs seemed to be formed out of solid iron.

Seconds later Svite raised his sword into the air and charged and the rest of us followed suit, our fierce cries echoing around the crimson cavern.

…

“Second phase! Get ready!”

The great golem’s health bar was fast approaching the halfway mark after ten minutes of frenzied combat. We fought as a practiced unit by this point, and so the fight to now had been much easier than I had assumed it would be. We had even managed to avoid any direct hits in this time, though there had been some close calls.

I stepped away from the boss to catch my breath. Although the game system greatly reduced simulated physical fatigue when playing, fighting in melee combat for this long was still physically and mentally exhausting. Fighting on the front line for long in that state would definitely cause even a good player to make a life ending mistake, ending their tenure in Finkar. It was much safer for fighters to take periodic rests. I assumed that these bosses were supposed to be handled by even larger groups than ours so that that was more possible, but I couldn’t worry too much about that now. We should be fine with how overleveled everyone is anyway.

So far however, the fight had gone as planned. We had blocked small attacks and dodged his large stomps, though I hadn’t had a great opportunity to try to parry one with an air ward yet. At the end of his long combos he would rest for a second, giving us time to release a few abilities into him safely. All this time the mage and Kyoura picked at him when they could, slowly chipping away at his seemingly enormous health pool.

I looked around at my companion’s health bars. Among all of us, I figured that I had the least total health remaining, which spoke volumes of my team mate’s natural skills at avoiding danger. I began moving to the left of Steelshoe as I guzzled down one of my borrowed health potions. The potions worked somewhat slowly, but I would need to have as much health and energy as I could to distract him.

I felt a now familiar energy flow into my limbs as the potion took effect and my health bar began refilling, albeit slowly. I watched as Steelshoe’s health bar turned yellow, and he backed off twenty meters.

As long as I stick to the plan, I should be fine. I silently reassured myself as the golem began to pull two large crystals out of the ground. In fact I didn’t actually have to tank all of his attacks to prevent him from healing. All I needed to do was plink him with a basic attack every dozen or so seconds, and my job would be completed. There should be very little danger to myself if I kept to hit and run attacks while Steelshoe tried to regenerate. I certainly wouldn’t be trying to actually damage or duel him.

As the boss finished pulling the crystals up they began to animate, unfurling limbs of rock and fists of gemstone. They charged the closer four, and I moved further to the left to engage with Steelshoe as Artel and Svite cheered me on.

“Keep him busy!”

“Good luck!”

I began to sprint toward the boss when I noticed something strange causing me to stop in my tracks. The boss wasn’t actually retreating, but seemed to be studying each of us in turn, its singular eye going from the mage to Kyoura and Artel to Svite until it finally landed on me. I felt a deadly chill go down my spine as the onyx eye focused on me.

Why isn’t it running? From what we knew it should be fleeing as fast as it could to heal, but it was doing nothing of the sort.

In my hesitation I backed up a few steps, and something seemed to trigger in the golem. Indeed, instead of running away to heal as I’d been told it would do, the golem began to sprint straight at me. Feeling a panic run through me as it defied my expectations, I instantly turned tail and began to sprint towards the door, as the thundering booms of the golem’s feet raced after me. Behind me I could hear a shout of confusion as the other three started their combat with the two smaller golems.

My heart was gripped with fear and adrenaline rushed through me as I realized it was closing the gap. Judging from the footfalls behind me it would be in striking distance before I even made it to the closed door in the cavern wall. Panic shot through me and my mind momentarily went blank as I tried to think of a way out.

I’ll have to face it. There was no way to out run it, though I didn’t fancy that I had high chances if I was to fight it. Attempting to swallow my fear, I spun on my right foot and came to face the oncoming monstrosity. As it came within spitting distance I could only think of how terrifying it was to face its charge by myself.

I began to draw the air ward as soon as I turned, but I was too late to meet it. I canceled my cast and dived to the left as it charged straight through me, and while I avoided the brunt of the charge I was still thrown wide when it chipped my side. It came to a stop soon after, choosing to lumber towards me aggressively as I struggled to get up. My already damaged health turned yellow as it went below fifty percent.

Why had it chosen to charge at me? Does that mean our information was wrong? Or did the AI simply adapt? I felt a shiver run down my spine as I considered what that would mean if true.

I shook my head to push away those thoughts. Now wasn’t the time to be panicking about the game changing. I just had to focus on surviving. Glancing at my health bar I cringed. That singular attack had inflicted over ten percent of my health in damage, and it hadn’t even fully hit me. I wouldn’t be able to absorb very many more attacks like that. Looking behind me, I thought briefly of running again before dismissing that. I definitely didn’t want to trigger another charge like that first one. That meant the only way to get out of this was to fight.

The golem lumbered ever closed, slowly speeding up as I backpedaled for time. Seeing that it was once again about to break into a charge, I decided on a plan and walked forward to challenge it. In response the golem raised one arm far above its head and brought it down towards me in a powerful slamming attack.

I evaded to the right, narrowly avoiding its assault as chips of rock and crystals rained from the sudden blast. Rolling to my feet, I drew the trap rune in front of me and jumped back as it exploded into the golem. Unfazed, the golem pushed through the smoke to slash at me with its other arms.

I grimaced as I barely avoided this new attack, an arm passing just inches to the right of my face. This enemy was much faster than my previous foes. Usually I was able to inflict a half second stun to reset myself, but Steelshoe didn’t seem to know the meaning of attack delay as he chained blow after blow in a never ending combination attack. This was a terrible position for me, as I couldn’t parry it with my dagger nor did I have time to draw a glyph and had to rely on dodging as much as I could.

After my seventh dodge I finally guessed wrong when Steelshoe feinted an attack from the right and I was thrown violently from a sudden kick from the left. My health points dipped into the red, signifying that I was under a fourth of my total, as I rolled across the floor. I raised my head as it approached me once again, finally entertaining the thought that I might not make it back to Paelgard at all. It all seemed unfair to me that I had to solo this thing, especially when I was the least suited for it. Though I didn’t think even Kyo or Svite could dodge all of those attacks in a row.

No. This is just a matter of pattern recognition. I stood up once again to face him. All I had to do to get through this was to react in a specific order to his combo. I had to think of it as a dangerous memory game and I would get through this. Watching the golem as it approached, I noticed that it raised its right arm once again.

This is the same combo as before. As it’s fist came down I quickly drew an [Air Ward] above me, but as soon as it was done I leaped to the left. The golem’s right arm connected with the ward, throwing it back, but it’s left arm immediately crashed into where I was just half a second ago.

I followed the golem’s next movement as I dodged its last, trying to guess the fients. After the tenth attack I tried to jump back but found the wall of the cavern. Thinking quickly I instantly dove forward between Steelshoe’s legs, luckily avoiding the resulting stomp. I slashed my dagger into the stone as I got my feet before rolling to the left to avoid his rapid counterattack.

As we sat out of each other’s ranges, the wall to my left, my eyes followed his arms for any sign of when he would start the next combo. Feeling confident as I caught instead a twitch from one of his steel shod feet, I decided to move in over instead of backwards, and drew an [Air Ward] at chest height as I ran at him.

I used the [Air Ward] as a stepping stone as I had before and jumped. Instead of going to Steelshoe directly however I instead leaped to the wall and pushed against that back towards the boss. He fell for it, attacking the air directly in front of him, and I landed on his head. An idea popped into my head as he tried to shake me, and I shoved the dagger into the onyx.

Steelshoe spat out four loud clicks as I twisted the dagger, attempting to draw a [Trap Glyph] inside of him. Finishing the glyph with a shout, I jumped away to the ground with a roll. Behind me the distinct sound of a fizzling glyph disappointingly rang out as I found my footing.

It was worth a try I guess.

Filled with renewed fury, Steelshoe charged at me again. I began to draw another [Air Ward] to block it, but Steelshoe seemed to notice and bent his charge to circle behind me. Canceling the cast with a swipe of my hand I flipped around to prepare for whatever he was planning. Did he learn what that glyph did?

Steelshoe slammed a foot into the ground as he ran and spun on it to face me, instantly raising his right arm before he had even finished moving. Recognizing the start for the first combo he had, I quickly sketched out an [Air Ward] and dove to the left.

I continued to dodge after every attack, continually moving and rolling around them in a sort of martial trance. Finally, after the fifteenth blow, the golem rested, giving me a few seconds to recover.

Taking the chance to stop his regeneration, I slashed my knife into the golem’s right leg a few times before backing off to a safe distance, doing so little damage I didn’t even see his health bar flicker. It felt like a waste to not release more abilities into it, but I didn’t want to push my luck too much in case it recovered early.

I flicked open my side bag to fish for a potion, only realizing a second later the others were all in my actual inventory. I grimaced as I did some mental calculations to see if I had time for that, but I relented as Steelshoe began to recover.

Looking behind me, I could see that the others had already taken down one of their foes already, and were focusing on the second. I only had to distract Steelshoe for a few more seconds before they could start running over to assist me.

The golem lumbered towards me to begin combat again. Instead of raising a fist though, Steelshoe suddenly rolled forward, almost crushing me. Then after coming to its feet it immediately raised a foot again as it glowed a bright red as if the iron was heated almost to melting. Instantly recognizing this as its famous stomp attack, I quickly realized I didn’t have time to get out of its radius. Once it made contact with the ground it would send a shockwave in a large radius around it, stunning anyway nearby for a few seconds. Getting stunned for a few seconds in front of him would be a death sentence.

I guess it’s time for a gamble. There wasn’t any time for hefty deliberation, so I dived under his steel shod foot and started to draw the rune right above me. My dagger danced across the air as I struggled to complete it before my head was smashed into pulp. Finishing just in time, his stomp collided with the rune, buffeting me with air as I lay on the floor, causing me to release a quick sigh of relief.

My relief didn’t last long. After what felt to me like an eternity, the rune began to crack. Of course the ward had a limit, but I hadn’t expected to meet it in some low quality dungeon like this. I quickly drew my trap rune right under it, cursing as it fizzled. I hadn’t drawn it right. As if in response to this failure the air ward cracked and shattered, letting Steelshoe’s foot come hurtling closer. Expecting the end, I closed my eyes and dropped my dagger as I flattened myself against the ground in fear.

Instead of death however, a metallic screech rang out. Opening my eyes again, I found that my dagger was just a little taller than I was on my back, and had somehow wedged itself between Steelshoe’s foot and my head. As I blinked in surprise, the metal groaned and started to bend as well as the boss used all its weight in its attempt to crush me. Not having room or time for anything else, I activated the glyph drawing ability with my right hand and began to draw without being able to see the result. As I finished the last stroke I prayed that I got it right. Beside my head the dagger, its durability finally depleted from the strain, shattered.

Faithfully executed, the trap rune exploded, releasing what seemed like a larger burst than normal. The blast rocked Steelshoe, tipping him off of me flailing. Not quite believing that had worked, I scrambled to my feet and began to back away from the golem. Without a weapon I wasn’t under any illusion that it was possible for me to fight him any longer, but as I turned away towards the others I found that they were already on their way back, having already eliminated the smaller golem. I had to skid to a halt to avoid slamming into Kyoura, who was leading the charge.

“Why are you running away?”

Not really wanting to explain, I nodded up to direct her towards my almost depleted health bar. When her eyes shot up and consequently went wide, I took the chance to pilfer her dagger from her belt.

“Wait..”

“Lost my dagger.”

Ignoring her objections I walked to the wall and tiredly pulled out the last of my allotted healing potions from my inventory. I would be out of this fight for a while.