I didn’t dodge.

I stepped into the next swipe, so that its front right arm connected with my left side. Pain radiated across my entire left side and it felt like I had just been hit with a very large brick. But it didn’t feel like it broke anything and I was able to cut a nice sized piece of armor out from under its neck.

I felt warmth embrace me as Cass began to heal me. That was the part I had liked. Having to trust someone who saw me as walking experience points to keep me healthy.

The boss’ jaws snapped down and I had to move back, but I was still able to dodge the teeth and I definitely moved out of the way of the barbs. But once the fourth barb snapped at the ground, I moved in and began cutting at the front legs again. It became a painful game of hit-and-fade, but we started making more progress, we weren’t in danger of it going wild, and I wasn’t going to have to blow my cover.

I was starting to slow down when the boss reared back its head and roared. I had to cover my ears, the noise was so loud, but as I watched the rest of the armor and a tail fall off, I knew that we’d pushed it into stage two.

I started to move for one of the mini bosses, then remembered that it was my job to keep the boss occupied while the others finished off the mini bosses.

This time I didn’t have to worry about keeping constant damage going or making counter attacks. I simply led it to the other end of the room, while the others worked on the mini-bosses.

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It took less time than I’d thought it would for them to push it into the third phase. As soon as the red gem appeared on its chest, I stabbed it, then danced backwards. There’d been a part of me that had hoped that would have been enough to push it into phase four, but when the gem didn’t crack, I moved out of the way.

And got hit with a claw.

I’d forgotten that enraged meant faster and stronger.The distance that I’d been calculating over the whole fight was now completely wrong and since I hadn’t braced against it, it knocked me on my back and my sword out of my hand. I had to roll away from my sword as the two tails snapped at the place where I was laying.

I could feel the warmth of Cass healing me, but knew that the claws had torn through the jacket. I didn’t need to take any more hits and thought for a moment about putting on the other one, but hoped that it would be able to take another one if I was too slow. I really didn’t want to mess up my other jacket, especially since we didn’t have a smith with us that could fix it. I’d have to drive to Haux, hope they could fix it before morning, then head back. At best, it’d be two days that I’d lose.

Gall hit it with a couple of his air blasts to grab its attention off of me, which gave me a chance to get on my feet and go get my sword. Bosses were known to destroy discarded weapons to keep Adventurers from using them again. It was never a good idea to leave a weapon lying around for long, even if it wasn’t yours.

As much as I would have liked to take a minute to catch my breath, I could rest when we were done. I started running at the monster and landed a good long slashdown its back right leg. The monster roared and sent both of its tails at me, it also changed its target, but it wasn’t looking at me, it had picked up on the weakest member of our team.

Brute was still standing in the same place that he’d been when he entered the dungeon. Cass and Gall had moved away from him, so he was the farthest person from the boss, but he was still the most vulnerable.

I tightened the grip on my sword as I ran after the enraged, wild, floor boss.