Hello peeps, sorry for the late arrival, i finished it yesterday but didn't have time to upload it until this morning. Hope you all enjoy reading!

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To get more light in the room, Lyra walks over to the entrance to prop the doors open so I can see the boss. Well, the remains of the boss.

“Um guys, where did Synth go? You didn’t eat her right?” I stare accusingly at Relix, inspecting to see if his stomach is larger than normal…

“Hmph, watch your mouth boy. Besides I don’t have a taste for vampires. Food from the sea, is the only kind for me~” It sounded kind of weird for him to sing the rhyme on that last part. Letting it go I turn towards Lyra to get answers.

“Master, when she saw you get attacked while helpless, she lost control and killed the boss. Then she disappeared, what you call a ‘log out’.”

So what should we do is the real question. She is already a higher level than us, so if we go to the second floor (since this was the first floor boss) we might be able to close the level gap. It kind of feels bad to leave her here, but who knows how long it will take for her to come back?

First I need to grab whatever that boss dropped! Walking over to his body I see a couple items. We also get some silver from killing him.

Boots of Dusk

Durability 45/45These leather boots are imbued

with an enchantment created by a priest of the Onyx Temple.

If one is lucky it will affect the outcome significantly.Agility: +4Requirements: lvl 20 and able to wear light armor10% chance for boots to automatically move/face you in the

direction of your enemy while you are blinded.Strength: +1

The other is:

Sir Mikael’s greaves

Durability 65/65Worn by Sir Mikael as he absorbed mana over the years

has affected the greaves, giving it a minor enchantment.Total Health +50Requirements: lvl 20 and able to wear heavy armorMagic resistance +1%Strength: +1

The first one is only useful for me. And I wonder if blinded is an effect which doesn’t coincide with not being able to see in the dark? Maybe it won’t help in the dark. As for the second item I can just auction that off and get some gold to store for a rainy day. Now that I have that done:

“I think we should go ahead and enter the second floor. All in favor?”

“I will follow you wherever Master.”

“Kii!”

“As long as my fish feeder doesn’t die.” Relix points his paw to Lyra, who makes a sour expression.

If only I knew how much floors until the altar.

Now with Rose firmly nested on top of my hair and the other two members are ready we make our way to the other side of the room that has a small door open. Supposedly leading to the staircase since we killed this floor’s boss.

As we descend the staircase the temperature drops several degrees causing my teeth to chatter. So I quickly grab Rose and wear her across my neck like those fancy people with fox coats. It doesn’t help much but it’s better than nothing. Rose seems to appreciate sharing her warmth since she is just as cold.

“Brrrrrr, it’s colder than santa claus’ nipples!!” Blurting that out doesn’t help the situation but relieves some of the tension. Except for the others who have no idea who Santa Claus is. I’m not surprise either. Even if Santa Claus did exist in the game’s history, he sure as shit wouldn’t be taking visits to Hell and climbing down a Demon Lord chimney. He’d run out of coal and make his little elves into slaves without sleep working in coal mines. The Vietnamese sweatshops would look like a heaven compared to them.

Anyways, the surrounding walls have even started to ice over and there are also icicles forming in some parts of the ceiling. How the hell is someone doing this or something doing this? Just as I’m racking my brain on this mystery our first monster runs over to us from the other end of the tunnel.

Maybe I should say ‘flies’ towards us. It is a huge humanoid ice sculpture with a gnarly looking icicle poised to attack. He only has small indentions for his eyes and no other facial features. It reminds me of a fake model put on display in shopping malls to show dresses and such. However this one is creepy and menacing and sure as hell isn’t wearing a skirt. I use ‘Identify’ to learn more:

Ice Lancer lvl: 28

He is a higher level than us but there is only one of him, and I am confident in our team work.

Quickly giving Relix motivation by promising extra fish, he agrees let me ride on top of him like a knight lancer from Hell. The ice lancer doesn’t have a mount, and right when we are getting close Lyra strikes then dodges, avoiding one of his piercing attacks. She did this to get the shiny-frozen-sculpture dude’s attention while I ride up like Sir ‘Lance’lot back from the grave with a scythe and a hungry fish-craving tiger making my move. He doesn’t even see it coming.

Double crit! X2 damage

Now that his health is down to about 60% give or take, Relix and I make our lap back with Rose on my head itching for a fight. Giving in to her scary panda bloodlust I throw her like Lyra did-more carefully though- and she sails over to the ice lancer and lands on his back. Unfortunately I didn’t really think that through. Before she had a chance to get her grip on the ice, she slid down to the ground on her butt.

The Ice lancer, seeing the new furry arrival, and totally unfazed by the cute eyes watering up about to cry-unfortunately it only works on me, or people that have a heart-gets ready to attack. Urging Relix to hurry up we make it in time to jump off of Relix and use ‘Vertical Pin’.

Pinned to the ground everyone joins in and tramples the ice man, taking his health down and eventually ending in his body shattering. Followed by a good amount of EXP, but sadly nothing else.

Rose jumps on my shoulder, clutching her butt as we continue through the tunnels killing more Ice Lancers along the way.

-----Rose P.O.V.------

It’s fun playing with these kids instead of what I used to do. I still don’t appreciate being thrown at an enemy a lot. It’s like I’m some kind of rock that attacks when you lob me across the tunnel. I think that Grim is starting to understand though. I just want to help out but not in that way.

------Grim P.O.V.------

We have been fighting my Ice Lancers since the first one and every now and then there would be more than one at a time. Lyra is getting better at being a tank even though she doesn’t have a shield it still works somewhat.

This took a good amount of time and I just hope that those damn documents have something worthwhile! It’s even gotten colder and colder the farther we go.

Making our way after fighting so many of these guys which seem to be the only type of monsters on this level, we finally arrive at the door for the floor boss. The door has an engraving of a saber tooth tiger and its two fangs act as the door handles to open it. We decided to go ahead and try the boss without Synth here helping us.

*creeeeeaaaakkk*

Opening the door causes a gust of cold air to wash over our bodies and shiver. Inside is an ice cavern, with stalagmites and stalactites covered in a thin layer of ice and the walls also covered in ice. In the middle is a saber tooth tiger sleeping on the ground. The tiger is bigger than Relix and just like the surroundings has a layer of ice on it. Most likely acting as armor against its foes. I use ‘Identify’

Ice Saber lvl: 33

Maybe it wasn’t such a smart idea to leave Synth behind. Thinking I can get out of this and wait, I slowly tip-toe back to the entrance along with everyone else-except for Rose of course. And just like an 80’s thriller movie, one of us makes noise on accident. The ice cracks under Relix’s weight, causing the boss to stir. Relix stops moving as if he just stepped on a land mine.

I try to make gestures to tell him ‘sorry good luck, maybe since you guys are both tigers, you can swap fish stories or something’. Of course it didn’t work and Relix just got impatient and carefully moved forward again, resulting in the same accident, thus causing the sleeping tiger to wake up.

“GRRrrrrr”

“Shi-”

Before I get the chance to finish my curse, the tiger then roars and starts charging at me. I get my weapon ready and Rose goes into ‘backpack mode’. Right when he is about to attack, I dodge to the right and try to slash his side. I thought I had gotten the jump on him but when I least expected him, he kicked me with his hind legs to stop the slash.

-140HP + Stun effect: 4 seconds

I’m kicked and skid across the cold icy floor straight into a stalagmite. Out of commission at the beginning of a boss fight again. In the blurriness of my vision I can see Rose on my lap waiting for me to recover. Thankfully before I hit the stalagmite she jumped off of my back safely.

After 4 seconds I stand up and look around to see how the fight is going. Lyra is at 70% health while the tiger is at 90% health. I run over to Lyra to help.

“Lyra I’ll get his attention while you try and jump/climb on top of his back! Take Rose with you too and try to shave his HP down as much as you can!”

After Lyra gives an ‘affirmative’ nod, I take her place and using ‘Quite a Sight to Swallow’ blind him giving Lyra a chance to basically disappear to get into position behind him while I attack gaining aggro. Relix also went with them so he can act as a sort of stepping stone to help Lyra & Rose to jump on the saber tooth’s back.

Once the tiger gets his eyesight back my scythe is already coming down on his skull allowing a portion of his health to drop, now making it 80%.

Now that I have his attention it’s a back and forth game of blows, usually with me trying to keep him still so the other two can jump on his back.

Now that they are both slowly inching towards his head from the top of him, I do a desperate attacks towards his face, which he blocks with his fangs. But that’s all that was needed, because Lyra unleashes a flurry of attacks while Rose uses the opportunity to jump on the tigers face and scratch at its eyes.

Shocked at first the tiger roars in pain, however recovers quickly, bucking up and down throwing Lyra off and Rose too. With 50% health left and pissed off to the extreme he turns to Lyra and uses a spell that shoots icicles from his coat of ice-fur. Relix who was the closest, rammed into the boss making the icicles land right next to Lyra.

I come in and attack its flank dealing a good amount of damage while Lyra recovers from the fall and Relix faces off with the tiger. Relix is having a hard time keeping up though, because the saber tooth is much larger in comparison. But all he needs to do is keep him distracted. With Lyra on the other side of the tigers flank, both of us start attacking, me slashing with my scythe and Lyra with her daggers. Rose also joins in the fun by jumping on my shoulders then bouncing on top of the tigers back. After a little while the animal is down to 15% with all of us tired and weary.

As a last ditch effort the tiger uses the ice on his body to stand up like a porcupine and shoot the needles out in all directions. Seeing what is about to happen I yell:

“Everybody try to slide under him!!!”

We all stop our attacks and haul ass and slide under-even Relix-causing us to only receive grazing attacks that whittle our heath down to the 10% zone.

-20HP

-20HP

-20HP

I got many of those, and finally as it stopped I slid out from under it and delivered the final blow right between the eyes before it knew what was happening.

Double crit! X2 damage

Everyone seeing what was going to happen if they didn’t get out from under it, evaded the huge animals fall. And with a collective sigh, we plop on our rear ends and start laughing at our ridiculous victory…

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Grim is lvl 26 now btw. and here is his info

-Grim-Level 26Strength54Health610Agility51Stamina580Intelligence72Mana750Luck12