Sally grit her teeth as she watched the last of her zombies get pushed off the platform into the moat. She had expected the pushing the skill of the Lizard man to have ended by now, maybe only lasting 5 to 10 seconds at most. It had not. And that was really annoying.
“Any ideas Humphrey?” she yelled out.
The Death Knight slowly shook his head. “He is immune to my duel and kneel skills.”
She exhaled through her nose. More the fool them for being a mostly melee party still. Lucius couldn’t use his borrowed bandage skill while shadowing Humphrey, but couldn’t do much else while the constant force was pushing everyone. If only they still had Norah here.
The skull atop her staff burst into green flame as she sent another [Mortis Bomb] at the boss. Now, with his focus being on the skill, he didn’t have the time to block the projectile with his axes. Instead, he took the blast; the skull striking him on the upper thigh and leaving a patch of darkened scales where it had damaged him.
With a growl, he turned his attention to the zombie and dropped his channeled push.
“Ah, I get it.” Sally grinned. “He keeps on doing that to push away melee players until he is interrupted by ranged players. Simple but effective.” It was a good thing that she had her broken dagger, otherwise she would have ended up in the moat like the rest of her pals.
“Yes,” the Death Knight said, right before he launched himself forward to engage with the Lizard man.
Sally furrowed her brow and turned her glance to the side, just in time to see a large hand clasp at the side of the platform. From below, a creature rose out. Something of pale green skin, large webbed hands like a frog, and two eyes that glowed a radiant gold.
She grinned. “Now, this could be interesting.”
The clang of metal rang out through the large chamber as Humphrey brought down his great sword upon the Boss. Despite his smaller size, the lizardman was agile with his attacks and easily blocked and parried the slower strikes of the Death Knight. The shadowed version of the sword flashed out from beneath them, catching the Boss on the leg and causing him to stumble backward.
Sally slid to a halt as she approached the new creature. It opened a large mouth, and she was surprised to see that it had rows of serrated teeth more like a shark than a frog. As it reared back, she could tell what it was about to do before it began. Staff digging into the platform for traction, she spun to the side and began sprinting off in a different direction.
From the monster’s mouth, a jet of corrosive acid sprayed out, vomited across the platform mere feet behind the footsteps of the zombie. Where it struck the stone, it sizzled and darkened it, the attack lasting a good five seconds before it ceased and the creature turned its eyes to see where Sally had gotten to.
As much as she trusted in her ability to sustain damage, she didn’t fancy her chances testing out how an acidic shower felt. Especially, she didn’t want to ruin the cloak that she now wore that Humphrey had given to her. As she circled around the back of the Boss melee, she held out a hand and used [Meat Hook].
The twisting pink beam shot out and struck the Lizard man in the back, his attention fully focused on defending against the dual blades of the Death Knight and Shade combined. She slipped through the air toward him, pulled along by the magical tether, twirling her staff around to use as a spear. The boss twisted at the last moment, unable to fully block her attack but taking the defense-piercing dagger through the shoulder instead of the back of his neck.
From the side there was a flash of purple light, as the demon struck out at the large creature, severing one of its hands. With a hideous screech it tried to swipe out at Edward, his sword piercing through the outstretched hand, but he was still taken up in the grasp of the monster.
Just as Sally turned to think of how to assist him, Lucius had already popped out the back of the Death Knight. From his hands to shadowed bandages shot out and wrapped around the offending arm of the large frog creature. The monster squirmed, intending to drag the demon down back into the moat with it, but now unable. Its radiant eyes turned to stare at the bandages leading over to the Shade.
As it went to yank him away, Lucius dropped his attack. Now free of the bindings, the creature then went to slam Edward into the platform to debilitate him before bringing him down into the moat. The impact vibrated through the floor. Sally could feel it through her boots. She winced and ran towards the creature to try to rescue the demon, but he was no longer there.
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Confusion painted the odd face of the frog-like monster, but instead of trying to find the escapee, it turned its attention to the approaching zombie. With tremendous speed it lurched out and swiped with its good hand, a trail of green blood spattering behind it from where Edward had injured it. Sally watched approach and grinned.
[Escape Fate]
Just as it was about to strike, she vanished up into the air, leaving a pair of zombies to take the brunt of the strike. She dropped down on top of the creature’s head, its slick skin proving to be a struggle for her boots to get a grip on. Her intended stab with the staff didn’t land as she wiggled to try to maintain a balance. With a quick glance behind her, she realized that she could quite easily fall into the moat from here. As the creature lurched around, she only just managed to find purchase with the dagger to give her enough stability to not tumble into the acid.
In fact, this was a terrible idea. She crouched and went to leap down back to the platform, but her footing immediately slipped causing her to fall onto her front atop the beast. One hand still clutched to the staff embedded into the head of the monster like a flagpole, the other one was slick with corrosive slime and started to burn as she failed to grab hold of any leverage.
Dark bandages shot out again, wrapping around her arm and leg, dragging her off the monster to fall onto the platform floor. Her staff cut an inch-deep gash across the head of the monster, not really enough to do it a great deal of damage but paining it, nonetheless. She landed in a heap and rolled across the stone.
“Ow,” she groaned. Her clothing was thick with the acidic slime, sticking to her body and burning her skin. “I can regenerate against that,” she spat as she stood back to her feet. “You will have to do better if you want to-“
She dove to the side to avoid being crushed by the falling frog Monster. Edward stepped over and helped her up to her feet.
“Thanks for keeping it distracted,” he said with a wide grin.
It seemed as though the demon had reappeared and leveled an attack into the throat of the creature while it was busy trying to shuffle her off. A pool of bright green blood was now seeping out from the corpse, sizzling and burning at the stone floor.
She turned her head back to see the combat between the Death Knight and the boss. While Humphrey had every advantage in terms of defense and attack strength, the lizardman was just too quick. Always ready with one or two of his blades to block the great sword. She did notice, however, that he wasn’t using any of his skills.
At first that seems like he was trying to extend the fight and have a bit of fun while they had more important things to do. But in reality, he was most likely trying to wear the boss down without killing him so that they could use the key. Before she joined them, her eyes quickly went around the chamber to make sure there was no second frog or perhaps any purple bubbles amongst the corners. This would be the opportune time to strike at the Outsiders, but she still hoped the Player was slightly smarter than that.
“Can you restrain his arms?” She called over to Lucius.
“Ah, no! I’m getting low on charges for that.”
“Convenient,” she murmured to herself. It wasn’t fair to expect him to replace the Mummy, but it meant they’d have to go for plan B. “Shadow me!”
The Death Knight didn’t look damaged at all, despite being overtaken in the melee. He had caused a few superficial wounds to the Boss that looked like the intention was to try to slow him down rather than kill outright. Raising the greatsword high into the air, the lizardman suddenly pulsed with energy and leaped backward.
“I am slowed,” Humphrey stated, his boot slowly stepping forward.
The Boss began summoning the waves of blue circles around himself once more, axes near the ground.
Sally planted the staff in the ground and slid across the floor away from it so the Shade could jump into her shadow. With the flick of her hand, the skull short forth, the green flames lapping at the air. It was difficult to control at such an angle, and her eyes went wide as it missed her target by inches. “Rats!”
A second after, a small knife glimmered in the air as it arced across the chamber to strike the Boss in the arm. His channeled skill interrupted right before the first pulse.
Edward swooped by and helped her up to her feet. “I don’t usually throw those. Lucky us.” The splash of dripping liquid came from their right to stop his smile in its tracks, and as they turned, they saw another large frog-like Monster crawling from the moat.
Sally pulled a face, but nodded. “Oh, smart. So interrupting him summons the froggies. Now we have the mechanics down. We can farm him on reset.”
“What?” The demon looked back at her. “Can you just go use the key already?”
“Fine!” She rolled her eyes. “Lucy, we’re up.”
The slow had worn off on the Death Knight and he had reengaged the lizardman, his five skeletons joining the fray to defend against attacks and slowly surround the Boss.
Sally ran and slid between Humphrey’s legs, jabbing upward with the dagger end of the staff into the left forearm of the Boss. Lucius did the same with his shadowed version of her weapon, but in the right forearm.
Arms waylaid by their attacks, the Death Knight struck the lizardman on the side of his head with the flat of the greatsword, disorientating him. That was all it took to buy enough time.
The zombie hopped to her feet and slammed the key into the open lock, twisting it to the side.
With the briefest of panicked looks, the lizardman Boss then exploded.