The first thing I did was cast Sucking Mud on the Wyverns back right foot. Given how soft the ground already was and the weight of the thing it just seemed like a solid plan. As that took effect I saw Cark rain down blue flames at the Lich as Callie picled up my vibe and was trying to chain down the Wyvern. Jessie was imbuing vines with life energy to target the Lich, and Sarah was helping as best she could with her holy hand. With them keeping him pinned I decided to engage the Wyvern with Callie. I was just hoping the specters didn't swarm us.

I activated Leaf on the Wind again and then Touch of Tears, turning my already flaming tonfas into poison fire batons as I hurled myself at the horned skull of the Wyvern. The thing snapped at me and I avoided with Cloud Step. Slamming down on its head as I bounced off mid air I winced, I was running low on charges for the day. I'd used a bunch or them on the raid and I was going to need to minimize them in this fight. When I landed I started wailing on the Wyverns skull, not bothering to speed up my hits as it was distracted.

As I was doing that and Callie was keeping it pinned down Benny made his move. Laying into the thing with his tranq punch as he leapt around with his density shifting leg. I wasn't sure the tranq would even work on the skeleton but hell, at the very least it was some damage. I could see the impact of my weapons on the skull as my blows landed, glowing green cracks smoldering into existence as I struck. I saw Callie slip past the horns to join me up top.

She slipped up next to me, not bothering to attack with shadows. My poison fire was a debuff that would penetrate deeply into the bone and spread, her shadows were blunt damage and we needed to find that heart. "Benny is going to try to get inside to find that core Sarah mentioned, but until then we need to stall the bastard. Any ideas on what to do other than stand on its head and punch it a bunch?" Callie seemed almost as lost as I was in this fight.

I scowled. "Not really. Our best bet is the eye socket maybe? I have no real idea how to fight one of these. This thing is fucking huge. You ever fought an enemy this size? Also how is this thing not crushing us into paste? It absolutely has to be Might heavy." I expected it to be much stronger than the Dullahan given its size and how it was a almost a dragon. This thing was fast and powerful, but not nearly as much as it should be. I'd been expecting nine hundred Might or some shit, and this was anything but.

Callie slammed a pair of shadow hooks into the bone to remain upright as the thing thrashed around trying to dislodge us. I grabbed onto her, and was close enough to hear her snicker over the roar of the Wyvern. "Because you aren't thinking this through. It's Might is probably close to mine. Fantasy would be a much higher stat because it has to cheat so much with the flying and interacting like a physically whole being." She paused. We need to get inside the skeleton. We have zero reliable ways to coordinate which means we have no way to establish a search pattern. Benny is in there alone."

I nodded and we waited for a lull in the movement. Since I was still using Leaf on the Wind I scooped up my girlfriend and bolted across the surface of the skeleton dragon. The thing rocked and jolted. The only thing that had been saving us was that it tended to keep its head steady, probably just out of habit. I didn't think it could actually feel us on the bone so it was just thrashing to try to get rid of something it barely knew the location of. Still, once we started moving even on the head it was tough to stay standing, and I wasted another Cloud Step preventing us from being thrown clear.

Finally after about five seconds of running we got to the eye socket and I hurled us both into the gap, dropping into the abyss that was the Wyverns skull. The whole thing was massive, even the socket was easily about five feet, and the skull itself was even bigger. We landed on the jaw, bolting forward towards the opening at the base of the throat that would let us drop free and get out of the head. Once we were out we bounce off another Cloud step and into the massive ribcage, which was MUCH less well lit than I'd been expecting.

We did see Benny scrambling around, hopping from bone to bone. I could see Callie's point about the Fantasy stat, from inside and at this angle I could see the bone itself wasn't the only part of this thing. There was an almost tangible dark aura that seemed almost like flesh coating the bones, isolating the light from outside and making it almost impossible to see anything in here...for most people anyway. Luckily I wasn't most people. "Hold on guys, I've got this! I can find the heart." I had to yell to make myself heard in the weird stilted atmosphere in here. Even sound was muffled.

I activated Seek Hidden, targeting the Wyverns heart. We needed to locate the thing as soon as possible, and despite the headache building from spamming skills I didn't think I was actually out yet. I was pretty sure I could last the rest of this fight. I scanned the inside of the darkened skeleton, and finally, after looking around more than a few times, I spotted a faint red glow overhead, obscured by a protective cover of bone. I'd never seen that, but I assumed it was some kind of evolutionary device for beings with chest cavities that could hold whole people.

Unfortunately, it was further than expected. I was betting something about the massive amount of Fantasy this thing had had altered it's internal structure. This cavern seemed way too big to be the inside of even the massive best we saw outside. It was a bit like the spatial expansions on buildings, though it seemed less...stable. The world around us was a dark shifting abyss of uncertainty. Regardless, I could see the heart, so we could head for it. I was still holding Callie and I dashed forward heading for the glow.

Benny had locked in on my voice and was heading our way, though the glow of my tonfas probably helped. He caught up to us within a minute or two, and we made our way steadily toward the heart, hopping between ribs, which the Wyvern had a shockingly large number of. Finally we made it to the spot under the heart, and were able to jump up and catch the bone plate surrounding the thing, which in itself ended up being the size of a small room. At the center of the room was a pulsing black mass of concentrated darkness with an eerie blue glow lighting up veins across its exterior.

That brought me up short. "Huh. That's...weird. We should take care of this fast, without anyone out there to distract the thing it might go after the others. Anyone have any clue how to break this? Because I kind of want to just smash it with my tonfas but that feels like it might backfire." I set Callie down and gave her a shrug. "This one is on you boss, you're the one who makes the calls." She stood up easily, the inside of this thing somehow not being jostled by what I'm sure was a madly thrashing Wyvern.

Callie looked mildly annoyed, which made sense since we had zero guarantee that destroying this thing would be as simple as hitting it, or that there wouldn't be side effects. Sadly we didn't have time to cautious, and after a second or two of thinking she groaned. "Sure, put the completely random decision on me in case it goes wrong. Fine. Do it. We need to get out of here, this thing isn't our main threat and the others are fighting the Lich without us." She gave a resolved nod for me to proceed.

I chuckled a bit. "That's what you get for being the boss. You get credit for the successes and blamed for all the fuckups too." I stepped forward and slammed down one of my tonfas on the heart, and it bounced right off. I frowned. "Ok. That's not...ideal." I tried again, setting my feet and swinging hard at the pulsing object. This time it didn't bounce off so much as kind of sink in, but still no visible sign of damage or even impact aside from a slight flare in the blue glow of the veins when my attack my contact.

I studied the veins, and was able to tell that the glow had shifted slightly. There were small amounts of green mixed into the blue. I could also see minute cracks on the surface, with the telltale green glow of poison fire, but they were so small it wasn't readily apparent damage had been done. Still, that was a good sign, so I hauled back and started wailing on the thing. I tried to focus hard enough to make the blows sink in, since that seemed to be what had done the most damage.

Instead of trying to use DS mastery I decided to get in some time on my Balam training. I had the others step back and started trying to work up my rotation, slamming my tonfas into the surface of the heart from different angles and positions to try to make my blows land with as much force and momentum as possible. The forms of Balam were pretty adaptable, so I was able to slowly get a grasp on what the best movements and attacks were to use with my weapons.

Blunt weapons worked similar to the strikes I'd been using, with the main difference being the reach. I had to change up my rhythm and adjust my grip a few times before I got the hand of it, but before I knew it I could see that telltale green glow beginning to spread, interrupting the blue. I was having a blast, the bounciness made this thing feel like a punching bag, and I couldn't get enough of wailing on the dark surface.

Sadly, nothing could last forever, because after a minute or two of blurringly fast blows the thing started to shudder. The cracks began to grow on their own without any help from impacts, and Callie and Benny grabbed my shoulders to drag me back. My girlfriend seemed sad to cut me off but she did it anyway. "Whoa there babe, that's enough. We need to get out of here. That thing is shaking and while I don't KNOW it's going to explode it kind of seems like it would be likely." I flushed a bit and scooped her back up.

We bolted for the edge of the platform, hurling ourselves off and into the cavity inside the Wyvern. The space was shifting even more, and I could even see gaps starting to form in the darkness coating the bones as we drifted down. We touched down on a rib and then waited for a gap and slipped through, falling a much shorter distance to the ground than we had to get to the gap we left through. As soon as we hit the grass we started running, bolting at top speed to get out of range, and it was a good thing we did. The entire thing went up in a huge wave of blue green poison flame throwing us from our feet.