Lightforge was lying beneath a shallow layer of shattered concrete and twisted metal. His head was throbbing and his ears rang from the noise of the explosion. He couldn’t hear anything but the ringing, and he stumbled to his feet with difficulty.
What was going on? Why was the room spinning? That’s not what rooms were supposed to do, he was sure of it. And they definitely weren’t supposed to turn sideways and hit him in the face with a wall, but that happened too. It took him a moment to realize that he’d fallen over.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the fog began to clear from his mind. The events of the last few seconds came back into focus as he tried hard to remember. One moment, the team had been excitedly considering the possibilities of the powers that had been given to them. In the next, they’d all been sent flying and crashing through debris after a powerful laser had obliterated their supposed safe zone.
His mind snapped to attention and this time he heard the whir of something mechanical behind him. He didn’t waste time thinking; he dove away towards the nearest pile of rubble. It was small, but it was the closest cover that he could find.
Another beam of crackling red energy tore through the air where he’d been standing mere moments ago, this time only the width of a finger. He hit the ground and scrambled back to his feet in moments. He hadn’t laid eyes on the dungeon boss just yet, but he knew better than to get caught standing still.
He scanned the area for his friends and took in the arena where they would be fighting. It was an enormous dome at least 20 meters tall and nearly 100 meters across. The edges were dotted with small rooms that jutted out all over the place. They made it difficult to tell exactly where the concrete corridors ended and where the dome began. They had been resting in one such room.
Now it had been blown up.
A little way away, Cannoneer was frantically pulling himself free of the rubble. While Lightforge had been covered in dust and shattered splinters of cement, the weapon specialist was pinned down by a single large chunk. He was wriggling his way free, but he needed help.
Lightforge ran over to the other man and heaved at the piece of concrete that was nearly as big as a person. It finally slid away and Cannoneer was free. The pair shared a half smile before turning back and looking for the others. They didn’t see them, but they did get their first look at the boss.
It looked like a flying saucer had a baby with a kraken. The dimly lit metal shape was suspended in the middle of the enormous expanse, eerily still in the air. It made up for the lack of movement with the dozens of mechanical tentacles that protruded from it in every direction. Each one was tipped with a different tool or weapon, and they constantly swept and darted around the room. It seemed to be covering every angle at once.
"Well, [BLEEP]," Lightforge said, "This is gonna suck. Let's find the others."
The pair split up to cover more ground. The tentacled monstrosity overhead occasionally shot a laser or a small missile at them, but it also seemed to be looking for something. Probably the other members of the team. It probably knew that they weren’t a threat so long as they were divided.
Lightforge ran and found Gray Guardian and Sunbird lying next to each other in the debris. The healer’s cloak had been spread out wide by the blast, mostly covering the pair and acting like camouflage among all the concrete. Sunbird was starting to stir, but Gray wasn’t moving. There was no way to tell what state they were in with the mask still covering their face.
He gently shook them awake while keeping his eyes directed to the boss. An arm with a gatling gun on the end was slowly waving back and forth in their general direction. He held his breath, but no luck. A shiver ran down the tentacle as it snapped to face directly at the three and the barrels began to rotate.
“Come on!” Lightforge yelled, “Run!”
Sunbird was at least conscious enough to nod as her glow surrounded her and she shot away. Gray Guardian was moving now, but not fast enough. Lightforge grabbed them by the arm and heaved them to their feet. He continued to pull them along behind them as they began to run.
Bullets filled the air behind them as they stumbled off in a random direction. Lightforge’s mind was racing, trying to come up with some sort of strategy. Nothing came to him, but there was a simple bit of math that he could manage. The boss was high in the air and had already hit them. As he was best at close range, he would have a hard time being helpful in this fight. But without Gray Guardian, they would all be screwed.
With a grunt of effort, Lightforge planted his feet and threw the healer forward with all his might. The cloaked figure spun through the air and landed against one of the rooms that intruded into the boss chamber. They’d be safe there for the moment.
Lightforge felt the bullets tear into his legs as he tried to start running again. He screamed and collapsed as hot metal passed through him. By sheer luck the gun stopped moments later, but it had done its job. His entire lower body felt like it was on fire, and his HP had dropped significantly. He was just under half already.
After about ten seconds, the pain faded and he was able to get to his feet. He ran to where he could see the others gathering, trying to organize some sort of plan. The three that he’d already seen were huddled where he’d thrown Gray Guardian, but Circe was still missing. As soon as he approached, the healer turned on him.
“What was that? Hold still, I’ll heal you.”
“No.” The word came out cold from Lightforge’s mouth. He knew what he needed to do. He stared down the cloaked healer and said, “I’m by far the worst ranged fighter we’ve got. Save the healing for the people who can actually hit that thing. I’ll do my best to distract it.”
Cannoneer placed a hand on Lightforge’s shoulder and said, “Take the healing. Don’t be an idiot.”
“I’ll be fine. I don’t need it.”
“Shut up. You’ve mentioned before that you don’t do a lot of endgame content. It shows. What you call ‘distracting’ I call playing the tank. The one who takes the hits, and the one who needs all the healing they can get.”
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Lightforge knew what a tank was. Even he wasn’t completely ignorant of raid tactics. He just hadn’t been thinking of this situation like an in-game raid. Those happened on a screen, with no risk beyond losing time and effort in the game. This was a battle, one where he could still feel the bullets tearing through him.
He’d become so caught up in the moment that he’d forgotten that they were, technically, inside a game. Finally, he took a deep breath and nodded. He let Gray apply a healing buff and felt the energy flow into him as his health began to restore itself.
Cannoneer nodded and continued, “There’s another thing that you weren’t thinking about. While you might not be particularly skilled at range, you still have our biggest trump card: Sabotage.”
“Don’t overestimate it. That thing almost certainly has defenses against it. And even if it doesn’t, its level will reduce the amount of damage I can do to it.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. Considering that ‘full damage’ is an instant kill, I’ll take whatever you can give me.”
“I can do that. Where’s Circe?”
“We haven’t seen her. Since the blast knocked Gray out cold, we’re guessing it did the same to her. We’ll just have to keep an eye out for her as we move.”
“Ok. What’s the plan?”
“You’re going in first. Lead with Sabotage, that should draw its attention. As long as you’re trying to hit it, it should focus on you. Stay close to Gray so they can keep you healthy. Sunbird, take to the air and look for weak points, especially the joints for those tentacles. If we can take them out one at a time, all the better. I’ll be sneaking around to find a nice hiding place to bombard the thing. Everyone understand?”
They all nodded; it was a simple enough plan, but it sounded good to them. Now there was nothing left to do but put it into action.
Lightforge took a deep breath and sprinted away from the group. He wasn’t going far; he had to stay close to Gray Guardian, after all. But he did need to make sure that stray attacks from the boss wouldn’t hit his team’s hiding spot by mistake.
He hurled a dagger through the air, aiming for the central mass of the robotic monstrosity. The main body didn’t move even as the attack landed, but its arms whipped around to point at him. Some of them did, at least. One of them shot forward to impale him. At the last moment he was able to step aside and push another dagger against the metallic surface. He activated Sabotage.
Sparks flew from the arm and circuitry exploded halfway up the arm. It fell limp, and Lightforge felt a surge of excitement welling up inside him. It worked!
Then every single tentacle turned his direction. Uh oh. It worked, and now the boss knew that he could hurt it. It didn’t seem like the type to take that well.
Before it could surge forward with every attack in its arsenal, a streak of golden light shot through the air and began flying in circles around the boss. Every few seconds Sunbird would slow just long enough to blast at the base of a tentacle before shooting away once again. At least once Lightforge watched in awe as she unleashed a blast behind her, turning on the speed while simultaneously attacking the weapons that tried to chase her.
Lightforge sprinted forward towards a tentacle that was hanging low enough for him to reach. He leaped toward it, knife in hand, but it twitched just out of reach at the last moment. He landed hard and grunted, but he wasn’t discouraged. All he had to do was make sure that the thing couldn’t ignore him so the others could lay on the damage.
As if on cue, the first rocket launched from Cannoneer, hidden away in some corner of the arena. It flew into a group of tentacles, pushing them around and getting them tangled with one another. Not as good as a direct hit to the body, but it was helpful.
It took a few moments for Lightforge to realize that he was grinning. There was a long way to go, but the plan was working. He ducked under a missile that the giant robot launched at him before running up a pile of junk and throwing himself towards the nearest robotic arms. He’d replaced his daggers with his hammer; it had better reach. This time the mechanical appendage was too slow, and he was able to strike a blow against it.
Sunbird dove away, taking a group of tentacles with her. For just a moment, it created the perfect opening to the main body. The next missile from Cannoneer fired, and Lightforge grinned even wider.
Something blurred through the air, and the missile exploded harmlessly in midair. After a moment the smoke cleared to reveal a lone tentacle with a glowing red energy shield. This tentacle was shorter and slimmer than the others, staying close to the main body. The smile slipped slightly from Lightforge’s face. That was going to make things more difficult.
The smile returned when a barrage of small stone birds flew out of the wreckage of another room. Circe appeared, battered and bruised but with a fire burning in her eyes. There was plenty of debris around to fuel her transmogrification, and she looked intent on using every last bit of it.
He leapt away from another round of gunfire and caught a laser beam to the shoulder. He groaned from the pain and turned to make a quick trip back to their healer. Now that the full team was on the job, it seemed like the perfect time for it.
He froze when the cacophony of the battlefield suddenly quieted. All of the boss’s weapons stopped firing at once, and all the remaining sound came from his teammates. He turned to see what the boss was planning.
All the tentacles were rising from wherever they had been hanging, spreading out around the boss. They moved until they stuck out straight like the spines of a porcupine. What was it up to? Maybe it was preparing to attack everywhere at once?
Then the main body of the boss began to move for the very first time. There was no acceleration, no slow start up. One moment it was still, and the next it was spinning at high speed. The air around it was suddenly a tornado full of its dangerous metal tentacles.
Lightforge’s blood ran cold as he watched Sunbird get swatted from the air. She was struck five times before finally being knocked clear of the maelstrom. She dropped limply from the air and crashed into a wall.
As quickly as the thing had started to move, it halted once again. Weapons roared to life, once more pointing at all the members of the team. Lightforge was once again looking down the barrel of a laser cannon, but it wasn’t one of the smaller ones this time. It was the giant laser that had blown the room apart not too long ago.
Out of sheer desperation, he flung himself aside. One foot was still in the laser’s path when it fired. It was so powerful that it didn’t exactly hurt. The sensation was so overwhelming that his brain simply wasn’t able to recognize it as pain; that was good, it would give him a chance to escape for the moment.
“Lightforge! Hold on, I’m coming!” The voice came from Gray Guardian. To his horror, Lightforge turned to see the cloaked healer running as fast as they could to reach him. The gadgeteer’s eyes went wide with fear. He looked to the boss and, sure enough, weapons were already trained on the healer.
With a grunt of effort, he pushed off the floor and sprinted for all he was worth. Gray Guardian missed a step, confused at the sudden rush. Too late they noticed the missile launcher that was aimed right at them. They tried to turn and run another way, but they weren’t going to make it.
Lightforge knew the plan. He also knew that things were quickly going south. And if anything happened to the healer, they would be truly sunk. With a roar of effort he crashed into the cloaked figure and threw them clear. The next moment, all he could see was the fiery explosion as it engulfed him. He resisted the urge to watch as his HP bar dropped.
You have been killed by [Mechanical Overlord]
Respawning in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…