Ocean Mob
Lophiforma
Angler King
Level 70
The angler king took a few steps forward, cheered on by hoots of admiration from Shade. With each small movement, the giant metal ball dragged behind the cetanthro, leaving a deep furrow in the stone ground.
“I am Lophi, the true king of the Ocean.”
“Well, that just isn’t true,” Shade said, sounding disappointed.
“Are you saying you’re in charge of Sloswen?” Owin asked. He remained beside the yellow barrier. He had no reason to move yet. When he did, it would be faster than Lophi expected. He wanted to keep the boss unsure of his potential until the last moment.
There was no real reason for the deception. Lophiforma was also level 70, and Owin had handled the other two bosses on the floor with ease. Or close to ease. He did end up inside the giant spider.
“I am in charge of all beneath the waves,” Lophi said.
“Boo,” Shade shouted. “I changed my mind. I’m on your side again, Owin.”
“I didn’t know you changed sides before.” He had the lich bone in his hand, watching the light bounce on Lophi’s head as the muscular fish took each step.
“Your pet talks too much,” Lophi said.
Owin nodded, not taking his eyes off the yellow light. “He never stops.”
“You should silence him.”
Shade quickly shook his head and tried to hide behind his own arms.
“I’ve tried. It doesn’t work.” Owin took one step forward, grabbing Lophi’s full attention. The light on his head swung as he looked back over.
“Then I shall fight you and prove I am the greater king.”
“I’m not a king.”
“Not with that attitude!” Shade continued to boo and make a cacophony of other obnoxious noises.
Lophi stopped and rested the heavy chain on his shoulder. “Can you let me focus?”
Owin launched himself directly at the boss and punched him in the side of the face. He barely felt resistance as Lophi’s head exploded, showering blood, brains, and shattered skull through the arena. The heavy chain fell to the floor, sending up a puff of smoke into the water.
“Hmm.” Shade took a hesitant step forward. He paused and crouched. “Do you think he has a second stage?”
Owin nudged the corpse with his foot. “No.”
Shade approached and kicked the corpse. “I thought this beautiful, hideous thing might provide a challenge. I hate to say it, but perhaps Sloswen had a point. You’ve grown a little too strong for a shardless dungeon. Not that I want him to activate shards. That would be bad.”
“It will make next floor easy.”
“Hopefully.” Shade poked the neck stump. “Do you think you could make a meal out of this? He was a decadent creature, wasn’t he?”
“A what?”
“Maybe sushi? Or sashimi? What’s the difference?” Shade looked up and stared at Owin.
Owin narrowed his eyes. “Do you think I actually know what you’re talking about?”
“Do you ever?” Shade pinched some neck meat and tore it off. “Eat this.”
“Will it kill me?” Owin took the thin, pink piece of meat and held it close to his eyes.
“It’s probably fine.” Shade pulled out another piece. “If it isn’t, you won’t have that much to worry about. Not much to concern yourself over once you’re dead. Well, unless you’re me, but you’re not because I’m me, so you’re probably fine.”
Owin chewed on the piece of fish meat and had no buff notifications. “It’s just meat.”
Shade chomped on the pink flesh, letting it fall out his open jaw. “An unfortunate reality. To die, and for what?”
“What?”
“Indeed.” Shade waved his armored hand through the cloud of blood and brains. “That was quite the critical hit. Poof, no brain. Imagine. Wait.”
Owin sighed, grabbed Shade’s arm, and dragged him across the arena. If he didn’t force him onward, the skeleton would never stop.
“You don’t want that weapon?”
“What am I going to do with that?” The huge metal ball on the end of the chain would be extremely powerful with his strength, but carrying it around would be obnoxious. There was clearly a reason he had never seen a hero use anything similar.
“It was a cheap shot. You should always punch the honorable ones in the nose.” Shade tapped his own face where he obviously had no nose.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “It sounded right.”
They exited the far side of the arena and stood just before the stairs and the exit. The stairs led to the ninth floor. The last floor before the final boss. He didn’t expect much of a challenge at this point, but maybe that was okay. Not everything had to be exciting. It would be different when he made it into the next dungeon.
“Ready?” Owin asked.
“Sure. What else do I have going on?” Shade took the first step and immediately tripped. He bounced down the stairs and vanished through the void nexus.
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“Dammit, Shade.” Owin hopped down and passed onto the ninth floor.
Ocean Dungeon
Ninth Floor
Before Owin even had a chance to observe the floor in front of him, a cold, squishy tentacle wrapped tightly around him. He barely heard Shade scream before the dark, nearly pitch black ninth floor flew past.
Whatever grabbed him was holding on tight, forcing his arms into his sides. Without his full chitin armor, he felt every wiggle and squeeze until the creature finally released him, throwing the goblin straight at the trench wall.
Owin barely spun before hitting the wall, letting his boots take a lot of the impact before he inevitably crumpled and fell to the ocean floor. He groaned. That one hit had taken half his health. If he hadn’t been able to spin before striking the wall, he would be a colorful splat on the side of the wall.
Or just red.
Ocean Mob
Kraken
Level 70
Eight tentacles wiggled underneath the massive creature that looked just like the ones he had seen sprout from bosses on previous floors. Its head was like a big ball but with white eyes that glowed in the dark depths of the ninth floor.
Another tentacle swung toward Owin. The creature was quick for its size, but he had more than enough time to leap above. Another tentacle swung overhead and smashed him right back into the ground. While it didn’t take as much health away, the shock and pain was more severe. Owin groaned, rolled aside as another tentacle smashed into the stone, and jumped away as another swung from the side.
“Back, you beast!” Shade punched the kraken directly between two tentacles. His flimsy punch looked impossibly weak, but as soon as the armored knuckles hit the red skin of the kraken, the whole boss stopped moving and only wobbled with the movement of water.
“Did I break it?” Shade took a big step back. “Oops!”
Owin leapt onto a tentacle and sprinted for the head. His steps carried him along quickly, but by the time he reached the head, whatever had stunned the boss started to wear off. The kraken narrowed its massive white eyes and tried to turn to Shade.
A full punch straight to the head of the kraken caused a thunderous noise as the red skin rippled from the point of impact. A deep rumble shook the beast. Before it could grab and throw him again, Owin drove the lich bone into the side and tore a hole big enough for him to squeeze through.
Shade grunted as he punched again. Whatever effect happened the first time failed to happen again as a tentacle crushed the skeleton.
Owin rolled his eyes and stepped inside the kraken. Shade could wait until the cooldown was done. What else was he going to do?
Owin ripped a handful of kraken meat out as he continued cutting his way into the boss. He couldn’t see anything inside, but he could imagine Katalin vigorously shaking her head, telling him not to eat random mob meat. He did it anyway and found . . . nothing. Part of the kraken could give a buff, he would just need to find it.
All kinds of noises reached Owin’s ears as he cut, ripped, and tore his way deeper into the kraken. It was only after a minute that he realized it was a little odd that this wasn’t the first time he had fought a boss by doing the same thing.
What would Artivan think about making a path into the boss’s brain?
Owin shrugged, cut once more, then stepped into the little cavern holding the kraken’s brain. It was a pink . . . thing. It was a weird lump, and there was little room to even reach inside. Owin slashed with the lich bone, which earned him a spray of blood and a rumble through the kraken’s flesh. He could stab the brian, or even cut it in half, and probably kill the boss that easily. Instead, he grabbed it with his free hand, tore a chunk off, and chewed on it.
It tasted kind of like a mimic tongue, which was one way to say it was bad.
“Seriously?” he whispered as no attribute gains flashed in his vision. A quick stab to the brain caused the creature to slump, throwing Owin against a wall of meat. After a moment to recover his balance, Owin sat on what remained of the brain. He had to really hunch down and smash a couple parts of the kraken’s brain into the base of the skull to make himself fit.
It was a chaotic start to the floor. What did it say about the rest of the ninth?
Summon the Withered Shade
Shade stuck his head out of the slit in the kraken meat. “Cozy in here.” He disappeared back inside. “Coming?” His voice was distant.
“Yeah.” Owin took another handful of brain as he ventured back out into the dark ninth floor.
Shade had tripped down the side of the kraken and remained face down on the ground.
“How was dying?”
Shade reached his arm back in a way most arms can’t move and gave a thumbs up. “Just joyous. How was cutting your way into a creature?”
Owin jumped down, landing roughly beside Shade’s head. “Same as usual.”
“Hm.” Shade turned his head all the way around. “We just got here.”
“Yeah. That wasn’t a boss. Was it?”
“No,” Sloswen said.
“Ah, fuck!” Shade ripped his own head free and chucked it at the god.
Sloswen barely moved his head aside, letting the skull fly past and crash against the shimmering boundary wall.
“I deserve that,” Shade’s head said.
“Hm.” Sloswen had his arms crossed, allowing his snake tattoo to slither freely. “I will be watching your progress closely.”
“Don’t you usually?”
Sloswen’s face contorted. Whether it was for humor or anger was beyond anything Owin could tell. “No. I watch as I need as heroes progress.”
“Does that mean you’re going to follow us around?” Shade asked.
Sloswen pointed at Shade’s head, then swept his finger toward the skeleton’s body. His head zipped through the water and reconnected with an audible click. “No. I will watch from my normal perch.”
“Like the fish?” Shade asked.
Sloswen’s ethereal gaze made Shade sit up and shut up.
“In the sense of fairness, I wished to inform you. If you survive, we will speak before your battle against my champion.”
“Okay.” Owin slipped the lich bone into his belt. “Anything else?”
“No.” In the blink of an eye, Sloswen was gone. A faint aura of shimmering water hovered where he stood for a moment before everything calmed.
“Does he look more like a cathkabel or a human?” Shade asked.
“What?”
Shade poked at his own eye sockets. “He’s got weird eyes.”
“You don’t have eyes at all.” Owin watched Shade, then stopped and grabbed the skeleton’s arm. “What is this gauntlet? How did it do that?”
“Oh. Apparently, there is a ten percent chance to stun a target every time I punch. If the stun goes off, the chances of it happening on the same enemy drop to . . .” His index popped up. “Five. Then three and a half? Yeah. Then it shrinks again.” He shrugged.
“But you got it with the first punch.” That was lucky. Without that opening, Owin wasn’t sure what he was going to do.
“Oh, no. I was punching the back of the kraken for a while. I honestly thought it was my dramatic shouting that helped.” Shade tried to jab the air like Suta always did, but he looked awkward and clumsy.
“I don’t think that’s what it was, but thank you.”
“No, thank you.” Shade patted Owin on the head, then stood still, awkwardly staring at him.
“For what?”
“Huh?”
Owin sighed. He opened his map to see the really small area he had uncovered. Currently, it was only the stairs and the beginning of the trench. The platform holding the stairs from the eighth floor was about thirty feet above the bottom of the trench, meaning when the kraken grabbed and threw him, he had traveled all the way across the width of the trench and fell that extra thirty feet before hitting the wall.
If his chitin armor had survived the previous floor, it would’ve cracked and fallen apart after that fight.
“It looks like it splits here,” Owin said, gesturing vaguely to the fork.
“That’s the main path.” Shade pointed past the kraken’s corpse down the trench. “It’s too big and wide to be anything else, plus I can see a lot of other kraken eyes.”
“What?” Owin jumped straight up and floated for a moment. He could see white spots in the far distance. Whether they were krakens or not was impossible to tell. “I don’t know what we’ll do if I have to fight more of those.”
“You probably do. I’d start thinking of plans now. And when I say I would, I mean you would. I’m not thinking of plans. Are you kidding me?”
“Let’s see what’s over here at least.” Owin grabbed the skeleton’s arm and dragged him in the other direction before Shade could keep talking.