The party encountered another goblin encampment on the way, easily dispatching the creatures and even getting another couple pairs of rocket boots, though Yondol kept them in his inventory. With Amy wearing both the boots and the anklet, she was able to fly quickly around to attack the goblins from any direction. Jade took her lead as well, having not even thought of using his wings in battle to stay above the goblins. He still had a bit of difficulty when one of the spiky balls hit him in the legs, but he was easily able to recover and fly away from the ranged attackers. Yondol, meanwhile, was a speed demon that slashed right through the goblin ranks, easily using his additional speed from using his anklet and swift shoes combo to dodge any incoming attacks.
Once finished with the camp, they headed out in the direction of the city, soon reaching it within a few hours due to wanting to keep a smaller profile through the woods. It was around dusk when they finally reached the borders, Amy looking excited as her stealthy skills would work better in the dark. The entire city was surrounded by a wooden wall, though looking more like stakes all tied together to make a cohesive whole. Otherwise they could not see anything else further, as none of the buildings or tents loomed above the two meter tall walls.
“No need to worry fellas,” she admonished, smacking both Yondol and Jade in the shoulder. “I’ll be in and out before you know it.”
#
It took Amy almost two hours to get in and out of the city, Jade and Yondol both jumping as an alarm had triggered inside the city. Feeling worried for Amy’s safety, they both got their weapons ready in case they needed to run in, fight or both, though it turned out not to be necessary. They soon saw Amy’s dark figure fly over the wall and glide towards the trees off to their right, both men trying to be as quiet as possible as they moved to meet up with her.
“Told you it wouldn’t be hard,” Amy gloated as all three met up, Yondol giving her a surprise hug that immediately made her face go a shade brighter of pink. “Here you go!” Jade immediately got a trading window from Amy, quickly smiling widely at the item’s description.
[Fusion Workbench]
As soon as it was added to his inventory, it was added to his crafting stations, multiple options appearing on his crafting list. “Let’s head out. I’ll combine stuff in the morning.” The group quickly headed out to gain some distance from the still noisy goblin city, setting up camp an hour later.
“Can’t you do it tonight though?” whined Amy, Yondol giving her a glare at her tone.
“I could. But then we’d be fishing you out of the treetops when you fly above them and end up not seeing where to land.” Amy huffed at his reasoning, Jade smiling at her cute pouting face.
“Fine. But tomorrow night, you’re going sky island hunting. I want wings like yours.” Jade couldn’t argue with that as they set down for the night, Jade finding it easy to fall asleep in the bedroll after the day’s excursions.
#
A chill ran down Jade’s spine as he woke up in the middle of the night, immediately causing him to jump up in surprise. Nothing seemed to be in the tent with him as he looked around, Jade dismissing the feeling and was about to go back to sleep when a popup appeared in front of his face.
[You feel an evil energy watching the town…]
The popup caused him to freeze momentarily, Jade recognizing the overall message, even if he’d only seen it directed at players and not towns. The Eye of Madness. The first boss normal players went up against, the Eye of Madness was a giant floating eye that ceaselessly attacked the player during the night. It could even summon smaller eyes to use as minions, though the minions usually fell to one or two hits from practically anything. If the boss monster had been targeting him, Jade wouldn’t have felt as worried, but if it was targeting the nearby town…
“Yondol! Amy! We have an emergency!” Jade called out, getting out of his tent and waiting a few seconds for the siblings to join him, though neither looked happy. “Has a giant floating eyeball ever attacked towns before?”
As soon as the words ‘giant floating eyeball’ left his mouth, both Amy and Yondol looked more awake, their eyes widening in fear. “The Eye of Madness is summoning?!” Amy cried out, looking more and more pale pink by the second. “But it only appears every hundred or so years! The last one was just a decade ago.”
“Is it your game magic telling you this?” Yondol asked, looking slightly less panicked than his sister. At Jade’s nod the elf deflated a little, looking around them in the woods. “Will it attack us?”
“No, it says it’s going to be attacking Ormand.” Both siblings sagged at that, looking relieved instead of terrified. “Isn’t the festival going on?” Both froze at that mention, thinking over the situation with more and more pale faces.
“You’re planning on going to help?” Amy asked, looking a bit more freaked out. “But the Eye of Madness is no match for adventurers of our caliber.”
“I’m still going to try. Give me the accessories. I’ll combine them together so you can either make a fast getaway or come help me out.” Combining all of the accessories together took but moments for Jade, both siblings quickly handing their items over, though Amy looked conflicted. Jade ended up with one pair of spectral boots, his beginner wings, and a spare pair of rocket boots, handing two pairs of spectral and rocket boots to the siblings before packing up his tent.
“I promise I’ll be back.” He then took off into the air, the shouts of his fellow party members following behind him. He didn’t care however, knowing he’d go to help the citizens from the moment he got the message. He may not even be much help in the battle, but knowing the boss was not set to spawn for another century or so cinched it for him. It’s probably my fault. The guilt ate away at him, hoping he could fly to the city and make it in time.
He got within range of the city before he got any other messages, though he slowly started to feel a strange presence as he got closer. Once he got to the wall of the city, it felt like something massive was constantly watching him, something clearly shared with the populous as most people who were still up for the festival ran to shelter in various houses. Maybe it’ll spawn outside the walls?
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
His prayer was soon answered as he landed on the high stone walls surrounding the city. Looking back at the forest he had come from, he saw purple and red lights start shining from trees right on the border of the clearing right outside the city walls. He looked over his inventory one last time, making sure he had all of his weapons prepared before noticing several people joining him on top of the massive wall.
“You look a bit green to be handling the eye, kid,” a gruff voice called out to him, an adventurer in gleaming, silvery armor having stepped forward towards Jade. His skin color nearly matched the color of his armor, causing Jade to think he had a helmet before a grimace lighted up on the adventurer’s face.
“I’ll be fine,” Jade replied, turning back around to look at the steadily growing lights in the nearby trees. “Not my first boss rodeo.” This seemed to breed some confusion with the adventurers he saw out of the corners of his eyes, though they quickly changed to shock as he pulled out his golden bow.
“Rich kid huh? Listen here you-“ The burly adventurer was cut off by a massive scream echoing throughout the forest, confirmed to Jade to be from the eye a moment later.
[The Eye of Madness had awoken!]
To avoid the eye circling into the town, Jade immediately lifted off the wall with a flap of his wings, noticing the light blue smoke coming from his boots, the new effect of the spectral boots. He hadn’t noticed how fast he was going in his dash to get to Ormand, but he now noticed it as it only took him two seconds to get close to the creature rising up from the trees.
He had a half second of hesitation at seeing the hulking shadowy mass, doubting himself for a moment before he fired off several shots from his bow. He hadn’t tested it out on other creatures before, but the flaming arrows had the same effect as they did in the game, the impact spreading flames across the entirety of the sphere. He hesitated once again at the super realistic look of the eye, especially considering it was staring directly at him. Being used to pixel art, nothing prepared him before that moment for how otherworldly the eye looked, floating up in the air with the blood vessels coming out the back looking more like tentacles without the suckers. A horrifying shriek hit Jade full blast in the face, reversing his momentum as he then glided backwards.
He wasn't sure if it was his magic or the armor he wore, but he could strangely still hear after the sonic attack, finding it did practically nothing to him. He then widened his eyes as the massive eye suddenly sped up and charged right at him, Jade letting his wings drop him a bit to duck out of the way of the charge. Getting back into the right mindset took only a moment as he swapped to his meteorite wand, firing bolt after bolt of green energy at the monstrosity. As the eye was right above him, he also found gallons worth of blood smacking into him, though thankfully most of it was repelled by his invisible armor. Grossest fight ever…
It was around then that the other adventurers joined him as everyone poured on damage, his green bolts being joined with a rainbow of other attacks. Jade meanwhile, dodged all of the eye’s charges, kiting around it to keep it away from the city walls, but also tried to stay close so the other ranged attackers could hit it as well. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a lot of the melee attackers swarming on the ground, most likely waiting for the boss to come after them. He gave it no chances however, sticking far away enough to dodge, but close enough to still maintain aggro. His constant attacks also helped with that, keeping the eye locked onto his form.
He messed up sooner rather than later, finding he couldn’t completely dodge one of the eye’s attacks as it rammed towards him. Putting his arms in front of his face, he braced for impact, hoping it wouldn’t be much worse than the goblin attacks. Once again, he was right, having remembered enough from Errant to know that the Eye and the goblins were of the same tier, making all of their attacks of similar strength. He was flung through the air, of course, once the eye came to a stop, but most of the damage he could be felt in his arms. I’m going to have really bad bruises- oh shit! He couldn’t even complete his thought as he dodged out of the way of the eye once more. Right after the last strike, however, the eye flew straight up into the air above Jade, staring right down at him as its flesh started to bulge outwards. Another few gallons of muck rained down on him as smaller eyes spawned from the creature, flying away and heading to anyone and everyone they could see.
Cursing at the design of the boss, Jade rushed out from under the eye, noting the other adventurers had already started taking care of the smaller foes after he wiped away the blood from his invisible helmet. He continued to aim up at the main eye, even as it continued to gorge out more and more smaller monsters. After about thirty seconds, it started back up the chase, Jade rushing around like a madman to dodge its attacks once more. Within a few minutes of it first appearing, Jade noticed the Eye of Madness start to roll upwards, the pupil no longer staring at him as it started to spin. Second phase.
With another splash of gore and many more of the smaller eyes spawning from the creature, it let out a massive roar, once again making Jade fly backwards as a huge mouth split open where the pupil used to be. The pointed teeth stretched all along the eye, making it look like a freakish Pacman as its jaws opened up wide, sharp teeth pointed directly at the mage. Jade continuously fired at the eye and even down its mouth as it did its transformation. Best time to get damage in, he mused to himself, starting to run as he knew it would start chasing him again.
And indeed it did, the massive mouth shooting with alarming speed at the mage, Jade barely dodging its first strike as it flew past. Keep moving, he told himself, straining to increase the effect of his spectral boots to move even just a little bit faster. He was the only one attacking it, however, the adventurers all scrambling to destroy the smaller eyes before they swarmed into the city. Dodge after dodge he successfully pulled off before his luck and skill ran out, leading to feeling a tearing sensation as the Eye of Madness tore off a chunk of his arm, the armor doing practically nothing to stop the attack.
He screamed as he rolled across the ground, nearly dropping his wand as he carefully held his injured left arm to his chest. Potion! Then keep moving! His brain could barely function over the pain, flailing at his inventory so he could pull out one of the healing potions. It proved unnecessary, however, as he felt his magic reach out to the bundle of items, consuming one as the healing energy rushed through his body. He clearly had been using the potions wrong before, as the healing effect from his magic wholly repaired the damage to his arm. He even noticed the sleeve of his jacket reforming, leading him to believe that it also repaired the torn armor as well.
A timer popped up in the corner of his vision as well, showing he had five minutes before he could pop another potion like that. Way better than an hour. He’d been staring at his inventory for a few seconds, suddenly jolting to his feet as he wondered why the eye hadn’t attacked him yet. His answer soon came into view as he looked over to the monster and the two figures flying all around it. He easily recognized Yondol, the skinny elf looking more like an afterimage when he moved around the eye, easily dodging all of its attacks as he swiped at it with his sword. Amy, meanwhile, floated around it at more of a sedate pace, using her chakram to repeatedly hit it from afar. In between her throws, she even pulled out the spiky balls the goblins used, throwing them and doing pretty good damage to the Eye of Madness, if Jade could guess.
Even the pink starling flew around the eye, hitting it incessantly as it let out another roar, pushing back the three combatants. It then started to spin wildly once again, spitting out more gore along with the smaller eyeballs. At that point Jade started doing his part again, feeling grateful that the siblings had arrived just in time to save him. Going to have to pay them back big time later…