Rested and refreshed, Will walked through the gap in the thicket fence, and into a room that could have been a big brother to the rest of the rooms in the dungeon.
It was, like all of the other rooms, square and surrounded by a thicket fence. But each side was twenty meters long, making the whole room four times as large. Instead of a single pathway between raised plant beds, the room had an orderly grid of four beds by four, with paths between each.
A single gap in the hedge led out of the room, directly opposite of the entrance.
A single mole was standing in one of the plant beds, ripping out plants. Unlike any other monster Will had seen in the dungeon, this one wasn’t even eating the plants. It just seemed to revel in causing destruction.
It was also twice as large as the Wack- and Guac-a-moles, and had bright yellow fur with orange and red flame patterns.
In a different plant bed, a large vole was sampling each plant with a bite, and then moving on to the next. Unlike the regular Vole-Ts and Vs, this one was too big to hide among the bushes. The vole was wearing a colorful poncho and a black cowboy hat, and had what looked like a gun belt around its waist.
As soon as Will entered the room, both monsters stopped their ravaging of the flora, and gazed at the wombat for a moment. And then, just when Will finished processing the scene, both monsters sprang into action.
Quite literally, in the case of the mole, since the bulky monster jumped into a hole in the ground and vanished.
The vole, on the other hand, drew a small gun out of its belt and hip-fired it at Will. A loud “ping” sounded when the bullet hit Will’s helmet, and the wombat could actually feel the impact through the metal, bruising his head. The one saving grace was that the bullet seemed to light too actually penetrate the armor.
Figuring out that it would be better to face the obviously ranged enemy at melee range, Will started to charge at the vole. Before he’d gotten far, however, the mole popped out of a hole and threw something in his direction.
Will had just enough time to see what looked like a whiskey bottle with a piece of burning cloth shoved inside it before an explosion of flaming liquid burst around him.
Fortunately for Will, most of the burning fluid splashed on his armor, rather than his fur. But enough of it landed on exposed parts of his body to leave some nasty burns behind.
Even worse, the liquid spilled in front of Will, and the charging wombat had to abort his charge or run into a wall of fire.
By the time he’d managed to leave the burning area, the mole was back underground.
Which, naturally, was when the vole shot him again, scoring another clanging hit on Will’s armor. The wombat didn’t try to charge again, figuring that it’d just provoke another Molotov cocktail from the mole.
Wait. Mole. Molotov. I can see where this one is going, and it hurts more than the burning alcohol. Ugh. Can’t dwell on that now.
The distraction cost Will, since it gave the vole another chance to shoot him. There was still no sign of the mole, but Will knew that it could pop up at any point.
So instead of charging again, the wombat retaliated by firing a pair of Thunder Bolts at the vole.
Attacking the vole seemed to provoke the mole into popping out and throwing another flaming whiskey bottle at Will. The wombat couldn’t move fast enough to leave the weapon’s area of effect completely, and got caught by the edge of the blast, scorching the fur on his wom-butt, and charring the skin underneath.
And, of course, as soon as he stopped moving the vole shot him again.
Realizing that staying in place was as good as an invitation to be shot or Molotoved, Will started running around the room while launching Thunder Bolts at the vole. Every time he attacked the vole, he prompted an attack from the mole, and another shot from the vole. But as long as he kept moving, he could move fast enough that the Molotovs missed him. He still got his by the gunshots, but those did very little damage when they hit his armor.
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After two more shots from the vole, things changed a bit. For the first time since the fight started, Will’s attack wasn’t met by an immediate retaliation.
Instead, the vole was busy reloading his pistol, which Will finally caught a good look at, and could tell that it was an old-style revolver. Which, in Will’s opinion, hinted at another bad pun awaiting him in the near future.
What was even more interesting was that while the vole was reloading, the mole was also staying put and not attacking. Which Will filed away to be used later.
The vole didn’t need a lot of time to reload, and by the time Will cast his fourth Thunder Bolt in the fight, out of a total of twelve he could use before running out of mana, the rodent was back to firing at him.
This prompted another cycle of Will firing Thunder Bolts, running around to avoid the Molotov cocktail, and getting pinged by bullets. But when the second cycle ended, Will was ready.
The wombat charged at the vole, and this time the mole didn’t pop up to attack. Marsupial crashed into rodent, and rodent got crushed.
Will managed a couple of claw strikes at the knocked down vole, and then the mole showed itself again. This time, the Molotov cocktail was aimed directly at the fallen vole, and Will had to scramble to get out of its blast radius in time.
And when the wombat turned around, he saw the mole pop up from its hole again, directly under the vole.
A vole which, instead of being burned to a crisp by the flaming alcohol, seemed revived by it. The rodent sat on top of the mole’s back, one paw holding its cowboy hat in place and the other pointing its pistol at Will.
The mole rose on its hind legs, waving its front paws in the air like a rearing horse, with the vole holding on to its back and yipping loudly.
I’m guessing this is the second stage then? Wonderful.
By that point, the plants in the room were more or less a lost cause, and Will really hoped that the fires wouldn’t be held against him when it was time to get rewarded for the quest.
Of course, before that became an issue, he still needed to actually win the battle. And he was fairly battered, slightly scorched, and nearly out of mana.
The mole dropped back down to all four feet, and began to charge at Will. As soon as it began moving, fire blazed up from its feet and covered it in a coat of flames. Meanwhile, the vole riding it was firing rapidly at Will.
The wombat had no intention whatsoever of letting the flaming mole hit him, and moved away from its path.
However, the mole didn’t seem to obey such pathetic laws of physics like “momentum” or “friction”, and turned around unrealistically fast to run after Will.
It did not, however, manage to reach him. But only because as soon as the vole had shot its sixth shot, the mole stopped moving and extinguished itself, waiting patiently in place while its rider reloaded.
Will, who’d been surprised by his pursuer’s sudden stop, didn’t have the time to fully capitalize on the brief pause. He had time to use some of his mana on a Thunder Ball. Which left him with enough for just one more.
For the first time in this battle, Will’s luck came through, and the vole was hit by the disorient effect of the Thunder aspect, causing it to fumble its reloading. Seeing that, Will charged at the duo. The knockdown effect from Unstoppable Lance Charge brought the mole down, causing the vole to fly off and bounce from the ground.
The mole, now without its rider, hopped into a suddenly appearing hole in the ground and vanished, but not before Will managed to slash at it with his claws.
With the mole out of sight, Will tried charging the vole, which had shaken off the disorient effect and went back to reloading its gun, but the mole came up below it. With the duo back together and the pistol loaded, flames began to cover the mole again, and Will had to abort his charge and escape.
What followed was another round of Run and Gun, where Will managed to just barely stay ahead of the flaming mole, while getting peppered by bullets from the vole. This time, however, he made sure to count the pistol shots, and as soon as he’d reached six, he turned around and charged back at the now static mole.
Once more, the mole was knocked down and the vole was knocked away. Will had time to claw at the mole before the monster popped back into a hole, after which the wombat immediately launched a Thunder Ball at the vole’s location, managing to catch both monsters in the blast, followed immediately by a beam of vinegar from his wand.
Mole and vole fell down, and a victory message appeared in front of Will.
Mole-o-tov and Re-vole-ver slain!
Gained 50 XP
Give me fuel, Give me fire,
Give me mole that I desire!
I knew it. Bad puns again. And the damn things only count as one boss, worth fifty XP? What a rip-off!
Dungeon: Sarlisa's Garden cleared!
Gained 50 XP
1 basic skill shard
Dungeoneer skill upgraded.
There was nothing regarding his quest. Will worried for a moment that the battle he’d just finished wasn’t actually the boss battle, but it did give him the dungeon clear message. And when he checked his quest progress, it marked all goals as finished.
Maybe I need to get to Sarlisa for it to actually complete? Not much I can do, other than exit the room, anyway. But first, let’s Harvest those two.