The giant tentacled arms of Khugor slammed down where Shawn and I had just been standing. The arms slowly retracted as the suckers slowly pryed themselves from the rock floor of the cavern. “We got this, right?” I asked.

“Uh, yeah. Sure,” Shawn replied. He inventoried his weapon and equipped his bow. “I’ll see where ranged gets us.” He loosed an arrow into the beast’s face. A red -36 appeared above its head. It was more than I could do at my level but still not great. I know the saying goes that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time but that’s only if it doesn’t fight back.

“There’s always a weak point right,” I said, feigning optimism. “We just need to find it.” A tentacled arm narrowly missed me as I ducked. Shawn let a couple more arrows fly. The large health bar above Khugor barely moved. “We can still run and come back at higher-” before I could even finish, a tentacled arm smashed the wall above the doorway, a landslide of rock collapsed the exit and filled in any hope of escape.

“My bow isn’t-” Shawn ducked a sweeping strike from Khugor. “There’s got to be another way we can damage it.” As it stood, Khugor was separated from us by water, and Shawn was the only one with a ranged weapon. We both dodged swipes from the monster. “Ten more arrows left!” he yelled. At this rate, we’d have our enemy’s health down to slightly under perfect when the arrows were gone.

“Wait!” I yelled. Khugor’s tentacle arms struck the cavern roof and Shawn and I ran towards each other to dodge the falling rocks. “Stand next to me!”

“What?”

“Just trust me!!” I yelled. Shoulder to shoulder, my friend and I waited for the inevitable attack. Khugor’s disgusting arms raised and came down toward us. Tucking and rolling, we avoided both blows. Just as I thought! The suction cups of the arms were stuck to the rock floor until the big bastard could pry them free. “Now’s our chance!” I screamed. Without holding back, I chopped as hard as I could with my sword.

As the tentacles pulled their suckers free, Shawn and I unleashed a flurry of blows on the arms. Keeping Khugor’s health bar in the corner of my eye, I watched as it trickled down. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. I judged that it would take us maybe ten more times to kill the thing. Maybe I was being optimistic.

The second attack was timed perfectly. Shawn and I hacked the enemy’s arms with impunity. We separated, dodged separate attacks and came together again, shoulder to shoulder. The next attack came, and I got greedy. Hacking at my target for too long, Khugor’s other arm came free a moment sooner and slapped me against the cave wall. -8 fell from my health bar, 5 HP left. Slipping up again would cost me everything.

It seemed to take forever but our cautious attacks came and went. Slowly the boss’ health dwindled. My body ached, going through the motions of dodging and attacking were wearing me down. Sweat soaked through my clothes and was starting to make me slip in my shoes, but I was completely dialed in. With another successful dodge, Shawn and I laid into our enemy.

I don’t know if it had been fifteen or fifty minutes but through repetitive action, our strategy was actually working. Slowly, slivers of health were trimmed off Khugor’s HP. Attack after attack, counter after counter, we were doing it. Khugor’s arms were stained with purple blood from each round of attacks. Twice, I almost got crushed.

A loud chirp echoed through the cavern as Khugor withdrew its limbs and submerged. Its health bar was down to fifty percent. If the goblin chieftain was any indication earlier, things were about to get a lot more dangerous. Exploding through the surface of the water, the beast whipped its tentacles wildly, thrashing the ground, cavern walls, and keeping us on or heels, frantically leaping out of the way. Just when it ended, my friend and I stopped to catch our breath.

Out of the water came a soggy, dog-like creature. Its skin looked like it had fish scales and the front legs were longer than they should be with sharp claws on the paws. Coral branched out of the side of its head and spines protruded from its back. I almost fell backwards when it took a step toward me. I turned to call to Shawn when I saw the same type of creatures emerging from the water all over. There must have been at least ten of them beginning to surround us.

“You take the-” before Shawn could finish, while we both gawked at the monsters skulking towards us, Khugor’s massive tentacled arm crushed my friend into the cavern wall.