With two new members in their party, they charged into a scene out of some twisted horror movie.
Cursed lizardman mages flanked three elevated platforms in the middle of the room, upon which two humans and one goblin were placed. It was a man and a woman, and they were writhing in pain, shouting and groaning, tugging on some invisible restraints.
He recognized the goblin. “Arti!” he called, but his little goblin friend was unconscious and didn’t answer. “Those symbols…” Eli muttered, eyes narrowing.
Symbols had been painted on the captives, and the patterns glowed, as did similar symbols on the platforms themselves, and lines going from them to a single lizardman standing at the back of the room. Many pairs of murky, almost blank eyes turned to regard the party, who, for a moment, just stood there, frozen as they took in the scene in front of them.
Cursed lizardman warriors stood arranged around the walls, their arms and faces turned up toward the ceiling in some sort of silent prayer.
“In front of the raised platforms…” Cruella whispered, pointing.
In front of the woman in the center and a goblin to the right stood a robed figure that only turned when the cursed lizardman mages around it stopped chanting to regard the intruders.
“Please!” the woman shouted, having spotted them. Her face broke out in relief, and hope shone through the fear for a brief moment. Then she began to change. The man’s and the woman’s bodies undulated, their flesh slowly expanding and growing bulkier. Their skin showed faint hints of scales and their jaws began to elongate to accommodate a much larger mouth. Even their noses changed, falling into their faces and becoming smaller.
Eli tore his eyes from the unfortunate victims to the one that was obviously in charge. The boss.
Cursed Lizardman Acolyte. Level 42.
The thing opened its mouth and actually formed guttural words, wheezing. “More pink-skinned human meat for our lord."
Eli frowned. “What?”
“How interesting…” the Acolyte hissed. Its voice made Eli think of a snake, but that was all the time he had to consider it before a disturbingly human-looking arm poked out from under the Acolyte's robes when he raised his hands into the air and the cloak he wore fell back.
Without the Acolyte having uttered the order, the lizardmen let down their arms and drew their weapons. All pandemonium broke out.
“Focus on the mages!” Eli shouted, charging forward to meet the warriors. He triggered his two offensive auras, blasting monsters away from himself and slowing their movements to a crawl while hindering the spellcasters from readying their attacks while simultaneously casting Silence on the Acolyte.
The spell failed.
The rest of his party spread out, with James heading forward and to the left toward Eli, and Simon to the right to intercept the other charging lizardmen knights. Cruella charged straight ahead toward the mages, while Samantha stayed back by the door to cast her spells of light to damage and debuff the large group of monsters.
Dana cast debuffs of her own, tinged with lightning that stunned and confused the enemy before bringing out her lute to play a melody they'd heard before, the same one Amy had used to turn enemies to their cause.
Eli switched over to his defensive auras while continuing to cast Silence on the mages, since the Acolyte resisted all attempts at silencing it. By the end of the effect of Eli's offensive auras being triggered, they’d slain two mages and four warriors, but they were still outnumbered by quite a wide margin, and the Acolyte hadn’t even come under attack yet.
It, again, raised both hands over its head, showing one hand with five fingers and another with only three, before going down to its knees. The cowl of its robe fell forward and hid its face as it began chanting.
The humans were still slowly transforming, their bones breaking and reforming, their flesh rearranging itself, bringing incredible pain, judging by the continuous screams and wails.
Cruella was laying into the mages, but they were quickly regrouping, and she soon flew through the air to once again crash into one of the stone walls.
“Cruella!” Eli cried.
She did not let that deter her, and she turned into red-tinged lightning, surging forward again to continue her relentless assault on the enemy mages.
Eli found the time to silence two of them, but missed a knight approaching from his blind spot. It cut into his side, steel sliding into him. He grunted, surprised. Aegis of The Dying Light was gone without him having taken a single blow.
All his other buffs were gone as well, he realized, including his auras. They'd been deactivated somehow. Eli fell back, holding his side to staunch the bleeding while healing himself.
"The buffs are gone!" he called out.
Debuffs began popping around his health bar, lowering his stats, his resistances, and even slowly draining his life. Eli healed himself again and threw an eye on the Party Screen, seeing the same afflictions touching all party members.
Cruella cried out as a spike of ice penetrated her shoulder.
“I got you!” Eli said, healing her.
Samantha took a bolt of fire to her leg, burning through the cloth of her dress-like robe and ravaging her skin. Light Mirage didn't activate to save her.
“It’s the Acolyte!” Eli roared. “It’s messing with our buffs!”
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Eli cast Warp, marking his place in the room, then charged the Acolyte. He brought down his wooden staff as hard as he could on the boss’s head. It was like striking solid stone. Pain shot up his hands as Samantha screamed in renewed pain. Another spell from the mages had caught her by surprise. This time, she healed herself.
Simon's Hammer of Light slammed into the Acolyte and finally threw it off balance. The mumbling chant stopped, but its health barely dropped.
Eli turned and healed James, then Dana, who had been forced to stop playing to dodge away and put distance between herself and one of the knights who had broken away once Simon turned to focus on the Acolyte.
Simon returned to his position to protect Dana, and Eli's eyes widened when the Acolyte turned to him, bracing its staff to chant a spell. He cast Warp before the acolyte had time to finish, going directly to the spot in the middle of the room. The move utterly confused the Acolyte, and its chanting stopped. Its vacant eyes stared at him for a moment, then it turned its attention to a different target.
The screams from the man and the woman stuck in the middle of the room made it difficult to communicate within the party, and no one had time to read the messages.
"The mages!" Eli bellowed desperately, casting silence again while healing the party. He was running low on mana.
Everyone was taking damage now—too much for Eli to keep up with. Even with the occasional help from Samantha, who was spending most of her mana on attacks. He deactivated Aura of Victory, to keep it from going on cooldown, and triggered Aura of Defense. The shockwave struck two of the cursed lizardman knights and threw them against the wall, giving Eli some breathing room, while James fought a third.
He immediately activated Aura of Victory again. Cruella finally killed the last mage, her chest heaving with exhaustion. Sweat poured down her face, and she was covered in burns, frostbite, and even strange scarring that looked like a tree. Lightning damage. Had to be.
A nova of lightning spread out in a ring around Dana, who had finally gotten a moment to breathe. The spell didn't harm the party members but damaged the lizardman knights and the Acolyte, interrupting their attacks briefly as their bodies locked up for a second, mid-swing or mid-chant. Lightning buzzed around Dana, who cast another spell that latched onto the cursed lizardman Acolyte, writhing around it like a snake. Eli couldn't see what it did until a debuff appeared by the monster's health bar.
Shocked: While debuff is active, the target cannot move.
Steel cut deeply into Eli's arm out of nowhere. He pulled back and stumbled in shock as his limb hung limp, even the bone severed. The lizardman followed faster than he could react, and its dead little eyes never left Eli's face as it raised its arm to attack.
Eli warped again, ending up behind the lizardman. Holding his limp arm up to keep it in place while he healed himself. Finally, Simon caught up to the monster as it spun to face Eli again. A powerful swing took its head clean off.
Samantha whisked through the room as a glimmer of light after being attacked, ending up right next to the lizardman with all the symbols painted on it, at the back of the room. The lizardman just stood there, ignoring her, so she didn't pay it any mind. Instead, she directed her spells to the Acolyte, slowly but surely adding debuffs and damage-over-time effects.
Eli's offensive auras finally came off cooldown. He switched to only having Aura of Suppression active and triggered it. The only monster with mana in the room was the Acolyte, but apparently, he hadn't been able to drain all of it, even with the second overload. The damn thing kept up its mumbling chants.
The air in the room felt heavy, and he suddenly found it difficult to take deep breaths. James was getting blue around the lips, and Simon's skin looked ashen. Cruella was most affected of all. She stood panting, barely able to lift her arms to fight against one of the few remaining lizardman knights.
"The air!" Eli groaned, triggering all his remaining auras. "We have to kill the Acolyte!"
No one heard him over the cacophony of sound. Metal clashing against metal, screams, and hissing filled the enclosed space. Eli coughed.
Eli: We have to kill the Acolyte before it takes all the breath from the room!
Luckily, the last of the lizardman knights died just then, leaving only the acolyte and the motionless figure at the back of the room. The Acolyte raised its hands over its head again.
Eli shuddered. Those pale, skinny, all-too-human arms... The cloak fell back to reveal its sickly skin.
James reached the boss first, stabbing into its side. In the newfound silence, Eli heard steel ripping into flesh, but the Acolyte barely lost any health.
“It didn’t even notice that wound,” Eli whispered, panic creeping into his voice.
Desperately, he cast Silence. The room spun around him as breathing became harder. Samantha was slowly adding stacks of damage-over-time effects, and Cruella slashed into the acolyte again and again.
Red-tinged darkness was building in the palms of the Acolyte’s hands.
Eli’s vision darkened at the edges, and he clawed at his throat. He glanced around. Simon was on his knees. James was steadying himself against the bulk of the Acolyte with one hand, barely holding on to his sword with the other.
Cruella stumbled to the side and brushed against the Acolyte’s robes. Eli spotted something. Glowing markings on the floor around the Acolyte’s feet.
“The markings,” he rasped. But of course, no one heard a word of his barely audible whisper.
Eli: The markings! They lead from the boss, to the man and woman, and that lizardman at the back of the room!
Eli: Kill the marked lizardman!
Samantha’s half-closed eyes flickered to Eli, then to the lizardman beside her. Without hesitation, she used her new spell, the exploding orb of light. It blew up the instant it fully formed, already touching the lizardman, which was torn apart. Samantha was thrown back, much of her arm burned cleaned off in a single instant.
Eli choked out a wild laugh. "It worked!"
As he’d hoped, the severed connection to the lizardman interrupted the Acolyte’s horrifying ritual. It let out a guttural grunt, stumbled, and the symbols around the room went out.
Breath returned to Eli. He drew in choking, ragged gasps, coughing wildly but forcing himself to his feet.
“Where’s Samantha?” he croaked. Spotting her fallen behind the raised platforms, he healed her. The missing chunk in her arm regrew, forming new pink flesh, muscle, and skin.
It felt like it'd been hours without breath, but the aura cooldowns just now coming off told Eli it had been less than two minutes.
The party moved in to strike at the Acolyte, but the red darkness in its hands expanded in a flash, throwing everyone back.
Screams echoed as the darkness seared into them. Eli almost blacked out from the pain as the sticky darkness covered his face and even going down into his mouth and throat. He reflexively healed himself, then spammed the group heal, not caring about the mana cost when the entire party was being burned alive.
Slowly, the darkness clinging to his friends fell away and their ruined bodies began to heal. Seared faces and missing features reformed. Heal truly was miraculous. Dana, Samantha, and Cruella reached full HP, but Simon and James were still missing about a third when Eli’s mana ran out.
Pulling out a mana potion, he gulped it down. “It’s not enough,” he gasped in despair.
The Acolyte was readying another attack. In desperation, Eli cast Light's Seal. To his immense relief, it succeeded—the Acolyte froze, its chanting silenced.
“Kill it!” he croaked. “Kill it now!”
James and Simon staggered forward, slashing into the acolyte’s throat and chest. Cruella used her knife, plunging it into the Acolyte’s neck.
Eli’s hold on the Acolyte was slipping, and he cast Silence just before the seal broke. He got no message about the boss resisting the effect, nor one of the spell working, but it did apply the debuff. Apparently, you couldn't fail when Light's Seal was active.
“Now! Finish it!” he shouted.
The entire party spent every ounce of strength they had. Their steel in their hands and the almost fully spent mana tore the boss to pieces. Even as it died, coughing blood, the Acolyte raised its arms to draw health from the fallen lizardmen. But this time, it wasn’t enough.
The Acolyte finally died.