“Le-leader of the Vanguard?!” Zak stuttered as his jaw dropped.

“Yes, Zak,” answered Treyhax, “This is Tryston and you should be more grateful that he showed up.”

ROOAARRR!

All five of us shot our heads back towards the charging zombies.

“It seems we’ll have to skip the formalities,” said Tryston. “I’ll draw two of them away for the time being; I trust you four can handle the other two.”

We nodded in agreement.

“Alright then, let’s get started.” Without a second thought, Tryston dashed towards the left, drawing the attention of two zombies. Zak and I seemed to be the only ones shocked he was willing to take on two of the monsters solo. I guess Trey and Swipe were used to this.

“Kath and Zak, go take out the one to the far right. We’ll handle the other.”

I nodded my head in agreement and turned my head towards Zak. “Let’s do this and get outta here, alright?”

Zak looked at me with a confused face which quickly grew to a cheeky smile. “Don’t worry, buddy. S’long as I’m here, everything is gonna be okay!”

“Boy, you really never change,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders. “Let’s do the same sequence. I’ll nullify his defences and you come in for the final blow.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s get on with it already!”

I smiled back at him and darted towards our target.

“Hey, no false starts!” I could hear Zak shouting from behind me. It’s really quite impressive how he can manage to make a situation as dire as this one enjoyable. As I got closer to the rotting behemoth of a zombie my sense of enjoyment quickly disappeared and was replaced by determination— determination to survive.

The enemy raised its hulking arm as it charged closer to me. Without hesitation I ran into the attack, raising my shield above my head in retaliation. The zombie slammed its arm directly downwards, crashing against my shield. For some reason the impact of the attack was nowhere near the level of the zombies we faced outside.

I pushed the monsters arm off of me with ease, making it topple backwards. In the corner of my eye I could see the pixels floating in the air from the monster Trey and Swipe were matched up against.

Just what is going on?

I snapped myself out of my train of thought and swung my mace backwards, preparing to go on the offensive.

“Ha, too late!” Zak said, darting ahead of me.

“What are you-”

Zak jumped towards the zombie, raising his axe above his head. He came crashing down on it in an instant, dropping the creature to its knees just before it disintegrated into pixels.

Did Zak just kill that thing with a single basic attack? Even if it was a critical how could that have done it in?

I turned to Zak, pointing a finger at him. “You—“

“I was watching the others go at it and the monsters are way weaker than they were before. I knew what I was doing!” Zak interrupted with fear on his face. “No need to chew me out!”

“It’s true.” Treyhax said, walking over to us with Swipe. “Something must be up. My guess is since Kulz created so many of those creatures his magic must’ve been split up pretty thinly, not to mention how many of those fireballs he was shooting at us.”

“That could be it…” I brought my right hand to my chin as I thought it over.

CRASH!

The sudden noise drew all our attention. We looked over to see one of the zombies Tryston was facing raise its arm out of a crater in the ground.

Tightening the grip on my mace and shield I ran to aid Tryston.

Clang!

Treyhax raised the butt end of his glaive in front of me to stop my advance.

“What are you doing Trey? Shouldn’t we help him?”

“Help him?” Trey chuckled. “He’s the last guy in this game who needs help.”

I looked over towards Tryston and could instantly see what Trey had meant. Tryston was sliding from left and right, dodging every attack the monsters sent at him. His body was moving as fluidly as water in a river.

“Wow, that guy really is amazing!” said Zak. “Plus, he has way cooler gear than you do, Kath!”

“Oh shut up, there’s a reason he can afford that and I can’t, and you’re watching it.”

Tryston continued to just dodge their attacks. It seemed like he wasn’t trying to take any offensive in this battle. One of the zombies lunged forwards, but Tryston simply spun to the left and the zombie flew past him. He finally created a good amount of space between the two giants. They were about 10 metres apart with Tryston sitting right in between them. Now would be a great time for him to take one out.

The two zombies took no time to wait and simultaneously charged towards Tryston, but he didn’t budge.

“Hey, they’re-!”

Swipe smacked Zak in the back of the head, interrupting him.

“Just watch.”

Tryston turned his head back and shot a condescending look towards us, still not moving an inch from where he was.

Both the monsters closed the gap in an instant and swung forward with massive right haymakers. Tryston spun and crouched towards the ground, raising both his arms up. He raised his tower shield up from his left side, blocking the attack and deflecting the fist upwards. With his right arm he swung his sword up and struck the second zombies forearm with the blunt side of the blade.

THUD!

The monsters simultaneously connected with each other’s faces, rocking them to the ground and exploding into pixels on impact.

Zak and I looked at the scene in disbelief.

“Did… Did that really just happen?” stammered Zak.

“People’s reactions to seeing Tryston fight for the first time never get old.” Treyhax chuckled.

“Now’s not the time for jokes, captain,” Tryston said sternly, walking towards us. “That’s no way to act in front of your subordinate.”

“Sorry sir, I didn’t mean to make light of the situation.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but let’s finish off Kulz before we take a breather,” Zak chipped in.

“As much as it pains me to say it, he’s right,” I added. “Kulz is a witchdoctor-themed boss. So far the abilities we’ve seen him use are creating zombies and throwing fireballs.”

“Let’s strike now, before he can create more adds for us to deal with.” Tryston said, breaking out into a sprint towards Kulz.

“Wait, shouldn’t we-”

“Just keep up with him,” interrupted Treyhax as he ran past me.

Swipe, Zak, and I took no time to follow the advance. I took a good look at Kulz and although his face was covered with a mask, you could see he was fuming with rage.

Kulz dropped his staff and hunched forward, reciting another spell as his entire body tensed up.

Circumdabor pelle mea et os meum sanguinem incitari. Potiri, demonem inferni!

Out of nowhere etchings of a hexagram appeared below Kulz, stopping our advance dead in its tracks.

“Is this the spell he casted before?” Tryston asked.

“No, sir, this is something completely different,” Treyhax replied.

“Prepare yourselves! We don’t know what’s coming our way!” I shouted.

All of us took a defensive stance and observed the witchdoctors spell. Breaking from his crouched position, Kulz shot his body upwards and raised his hands in the air. The hex began spinning in circles. What started as a slow pace quickly turned into rapid spinning, similar to the blades of a helicopter.

KABOOM

The hex ignited upwards several metres into the air, creating a cylinder of flames.

All of us stood there speechless, unsure of how to react.

“Uhh, did the boss just off himself?” Zak laughed.

“Now’s not the time for jokes, kid,” replied Tryston sternly.

From the cylindrical inferno a cracking sound could be heard, but it wasn’t the cracking of flames; it bore more resemblance to that of bones being broken. That was when something began to break out of the wall of flames.

A gigantic skeletal hand set ablaze emerged from the flame, shortly followed by a forearm, foot, and leg. In a matter of seconds a skeleton dressed in flames appeared before us, with bones that seemed to be as thick as an elephant’s. Kulz nearly doubled in height, but it was the width of him that made the most notable difference. With flames and waves of heat emanating from his body, Kulz let out a vicious roar and charged towards us.

“Kathrall, right?” asked Tryston.

“Yeah, that’s my name.”

“You and I are going to have to take every hit this thing dishes out; we don’t know what’ll happen if it hits one of the others. I trust the rest of you to strike at opportune times. His HP bar is still quite low so this battle can end quickly if we play this out properly.”

Zak, Treyhax, and Swipe wasted no time spacing themselves away from Tryston and I. The two of us readied our defenses and charged forward to meet our final battle head on.

Kulz raised a blazing right fist in the air and swung it towards me. I raised my shield and prepared myself for the impending blow.

CRASH!

I planted my feet hard onto the ground and tried to push back the attack, but it had the force of a meteor behind it. Kulz continued to press his fist forwards, pushing me backwards and knocking me off balance.

Injured and helpless on the ground, I looked up to see a tree sized left leg sweeping in my direction. I tried to gather myself to brace for the attack, but it was simply too quick.

“Don’t give up yet.”

In a blur of movement Tryston placed himself between Kulz and I, preparing his guard. He let his sword fall to the ground and dropped his shoulder downwards. Bracing for impact with both arms wielding the shield, Tryston went into the kick head on.

The force of the collision sent out a thunderous shockwave, creating clouds of dirt and dust. Through the clouds I could make out Tryston’s figure, boldly holding his ground against Kulz.

“!” shouted Tryston as his shield became shrouded in gold light. With blinding speed, Tryston retracted his shield away from Kulz to create distance between the shield and foot, and in an instant pushed the shield forwards with devastating force.

The attack threw Kulz completely off balance as a trail of cracks travelled from the point of impact up towards his hip.

“Now!” commanded Tryston.

“!”

“!”

“!”

Zak, Treyhax, and Swipe all crashed down into Kulz with their deadliest weapon skills in perfect sequence, pinning the monster to floor.

I gathered myself and joined Tryston’s side, analyzing Kulz. Cracked bones, dissipating flames, and limbs reduced to ashes— he was defeated. The health bar hovering above his head nearly dropped to zero percent. It was almost like he was living off willpower alone.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Tryston. “I’m not here to reap your glory, claim your reward so we can move on from this wretched place.”

I nodded to Tryston and turned my attention back to the incapacitated heap of bones. Kulz looked up at me with one last stare, the fire in his empty eye sockets beginning to fade.

I raised my mace high into the air and with a crushing blow to the exposed skull, the witchdoctor was no more. No more than five seconds later a notification rang from my quest log.

FORSAKEN VILLAGE QUEST (COMPLETE)

REWARD: 375 EXP, 4,000 Col

ACCEPT REWARD

Before I could even say anything, Zak was jumping with joy. “4,000 Col, no freakin’ way!” he exclaimed. “And the experience gain? That’ll almost give me two full levels, not to mention what we got from the boss and mobs!”

“Yeah, well, when your life is put on the line you really oughta get your money’s worth.” I chuckled. I raised my hand and pressed the holographic accept button.

Cha-ching!

A sound effect like that of a cash register went off as the money and experience were transferred to me.

“Now that that’s out of the way, there’s a reason I came looking for you, Treyhax,” said Tryston.

“Yeah I was curious about that, sir,” replied Treyhax. “What was so urgent you had to rush over to see me in person?”

“We finally found what we’ve been looking for.”

“Wait, you couldn’t mean…”

“That’s right, we found the chambers of the first floor boss.”