Erialda spewed forth a cloud of her poisonous spit, and I spent my Moment of Mastery to dive forward into the muck beneath her face, avoiding it. I felt a few of her legs pierce me through my back—and then Cuby’s harpoon struck me in the side before she dragged me out of the water with a surge of momentous power so that I collided with the edge of hardlight platform and clumsily scampered up onto it.

Can you get to the stairs? she asked.

As I spat the most foul taste I’d ever experienced out of my mouth, I looked past Erialda. The metal machine had exploded into fragments, and the crackling fire, composed of tongues of red flame that sparked and became arcs of electricity before dissipating, had spread into the swamp, which was burning. Past that I could see the stairwell—only it had been broken off some 30 or 35 meters above the ground.

I’ll need to borrow our construct, I said.

I’ll be fine.

The bodies are bombs, I said, looking at the growing pool of lightning-fire.

I’ll be fine! she said, and I remembered that she had Saint’s Purity, an offhand that halved the damage of flames, and that my Elemental Aegis was set to provide Fire Resistance.

Had we been fighting anything else, I might have smiled. A boss could only have so many tricks, and Erialda’s seemed to be the swamp and the flames she could ignite it with—both things that Cuby could readily avoid.

The boss reached us, and I leapt into the air and glided over it. A bolt of the fire-lightning from its tail struck me in midair, dropping me to 350, but my Mana Shield replenished moments later. I sailed over the growing patch of fire where the machine had been, careful to swerve and avoid a spider-corpse that exploded once it had been touched by the flames, then landed by the stairway, invested myself with a Hardlight Construct, and leapt into the air a moment later as Mighty Leap cooled down before making myself a shelf to stand on.

Then I began healing myself, looking upward for signs of any oncoming players and cursing myself for not thinking better—I might have placed an Auditory Illusion with some battle noises and generic boss dialogue somewhere out of the way to distract Nerien and Haroshi before we’d come down here. As it was, the sound of Erialda’s howling would lead them right to us.

Below me, Cuby fought in the swamp, using her cooldowns to deal with the movement and Defense Rating penalties that the waist-deep water conveyed. I could see a buff on her, Battle Trance, that gave her a hefty 9 Defense Rating and Precision, and as I watched, she dodged the paralytic spit by leaping onto Erialda’s neck and then backflipping off it to continue slashing at her face.

I leapt up onto the edge of the broken stone steps, then invested Cuby with another Hardlight Construct so she could stand on something. The boss ignored this platform—but even if it didn’t, damaging it would mean leaving Cuby alone before I just summoned it again. I gave Cuby a heal, then gave her a warning through the mind link as Erialda spat a bolt of fire at a nearby floating morthoth corpse—Cuby jumped, landing in the slosh, just before the corpse exploded and the swamp ignited with fire around it.

I fed her another Hardlight Construct, and—because we were now both close enough to full health—began to layer in the real support: Supercharged Psychic Parasite was invested, then Supercharged Haste, then Supercharged Slow, then a Telekinetic Hammer so that she could punt a nearby spider corpse away from her and make her position more secure.

Erialda at this point was at 80%; Cuby did a lot of damage now. But once I began to spam my augmented Purging Radiances, the boss’s Hit Points really began to plummet. The magical fire below us had spread from the broken machine to the base of the stairs, and soon Cuby, too, was engulfed in the flames, the Hardlight Construct breaking after a few ticks of the flames.

Ignore it, said Cuby. Just keep purging. Erialda had almost hit 50%

Just steadfast crusader things, I figured. Surely this boss was supposed to be as hard as Eradicia was—but killing Eradicia had made it much easier, because now Cuby was several times harder to kill. The main threats seemed to be the exploding corpses, the waist-deep water, and the spreading flames. The steps that I was standing on were far out of range of the fight for anyone not using investiture on their tank, and the ticking damage was likely untenably deadly for someone who wasn’t Cuby—Elemental Aegis was granting 56 Fire and 28 Lightning Resistance, and the cloaks we’d gotten from Eradicia brought the Fire Resistance even higher. With her Saint’s Purity, her flat reduction for the damage was probably somewhere around 50 per tick—and that damage was being halved as well. I tried to wrap my head around healing an actual party through the unmitigated value and came to the conclusion that everyone was probably just supposed to wade further into the muck and hope they didn’t run out of space before this boss died.

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But as easy as the boss felt, we had much worse things to worry about. I kept my eye on the stairway above us, and I stored a Fragmented Supercharge Telekinetic Hammer, then set two missile runes into the ground around me and refreshing my Moment of Mastery. Cuby could handle herself for awhile, and if the enemy appeared I’d want to leap into their midst and toss a bunch of them into the fire below before gliding down to where Cuby was. Nerien and Haroshi would be a huge problem, but with any luck the way Cuby was ignoring the fire would cause them to underestimate it.

But Haroshi and Nerien didn’t appear. Erialda hit 20% and we prepared for an enrage as I drank another mana potion. I had to wonder where they were: if we wanted to survive, it would pay to assume the worst….

Cuby, I said. Either they’re lost upstairs making their way through the dungeon, or they’re about to appear any second now, or they’re waiting at the final boss.

Do we need to—oh, I guess so, she said, conveying me the briefest impression of the most unpleasant experience imaginable, fighting Erialda face-to-face in the muck.

We only need to think of getting to them and killing them, I said. So who takes the boon card if Erialda drops one? I remember boons that gave a bonus of 5 to an ability subtype and access to any iconic, and I remember a signature move boon that looked powerful—which of us has the best chance to turning the coming fight in our favor?

You need to take signature move, Cuby said with utmost certainty. Maybe not now, but at some point for Supercharged Spell. Triple effect spells, Alatar. All our buffs, and your fragment.

Oh, I said. It would make a huge difference—if I could cast for two minutes or so while we were on the way to the enemy. I’m thinking of Illusion Master, or whatever it was, I said. Good to take anyway because illusions have been so strong—if we can get their strength above what’s realistically attainable in terms of True Sight, an invisibility spell would make us gods.

Below, Cuby used Mighty Leap to throw herself into the air, delivering a Vilefire Strike with her Drop Strike ability before flipping off Erialda’s back to land back on the hardlight platform. I think… hm. If they had a Potion of True Sight they’d have used it outside. Unless someone leveled into True Sight or one of them took the Divination Boon just for true sight—actually, even if they did… we’d just be trading boon for boon. It comes down to whether you think that’s likely. An Invisibility spell, I mean.

I hesitated. I think it’s likely, I said at last. There’s got to be one somewhere in the game… and if there’s no iconic invisibility spell, some other iconic illusion could still be enough—they don’t have true sight. Also: bring the boss back here before she dies, if you can. If I’m right, we’ve got to book it as soon as she goes down.

I was almost out of Energy as Cuby leapt backward toward the ruins of the machine and Erialda followed her. I drank another mana potion, then kept spamming my purges.

Illusions sounds good, said Cuby. Some of the others could be, too, but I don’t know which. An invisibility spell existing sounds like a safe bet—but what makes you sure that you’ll get it in the pick? I think the system just offers you some of the highest spells for your spellcraft.

My spellcraft is 78. You think that’s too high?

I don’t know, she said. There’s others, too… Time, Warp, Mental… but I’m not sure any of them would be a better shot than Illusion. And I have no idea what I would take that would give us a better shot than you—you get more mileage out of a single powerful spell than I could from a technique.

Illusion, then?

I think so. I think you’re right about the True Sight threshold—if we get out of this place alive, it’ll take a chosen to—”

Erialda roared as she hit 10%, and Cuby and I both tensed. Then the boss burst into more of the lightning-fire she’d thrown out earlier, coating herself with it and doubling the rate that the negligible damage ticked on Cuby.

Oh, I said. Well that’s underwhelming. Get ready to run.

I’m ready, said Cuby. Just don’t forget they’ll have trap runes out by the door. And one more thing, she said.

What?

I canceled Moment of Solace. It should be on you, not me—I’m chosen, now. You can stop being overprotective.

I blinked. Moment of Solace was indeed off its cooldown—which only began when it was expended, not just cast—and so I cast it on myself, Supercharged, as Cuby continued the fight. It was just… yes, okay, I’d been overprotective, but when we’d fought that devil, I’d been certain she was going to die.

Below me, Erialda’s stinger came down and struck Cuby several times as we finished the boss, but the increased damage was nothing I couldn’t heal. Soon the freakish demon hit 0%, burning away into blue cinders much as Eradicia had—only her dying cry seemed to be one of relief, not anguish.

Quest Completed – The Prisoner’s Release