This is an Invert Hostility gunfight, I said to Cuby, who had two casts invested.

I’ll double up Rousing Command, said Cuby. Then she added: Miracles share a 12-second cooldown.

I began casting an Intuitive Supercharged Unnatural Confusion, conveying to Cuby that I expected Haroshi to spell reflect me early. To Ryxariel, I said: “Whatever they offered you, we can do better.”

She smiled and opened her mouth to speak—but then my cast finished, and what happened next was an explosion of chaos.

Everyone knew that whoever got the first crowd-controls off could turn the battle in their favor. These first few seconds were crucial.

And so as my spell flew for Haroshi, Nerien threw a transparent missile at me that I expected was an Invert Hostility, and Cuby threw her sword—also at me. Ryxariel threw two bolts of red energy that I knew were stuns—it was the same spell that her devil-brethren and High Priest Axxonni had cast.

Haroshi reflected my spell, and Cuby’s thrown sword struck me to trigger my Reactive Armor and bring my Defense Rating to an absurd 52. The high defense rating was crucial; we needed to give them as many chances to miss as possible so as to not spend Moment of Mastery or Rousing Commands except as necessary. Ryxariel’s spell was deflected by my armor, scattering in a shower of red sparks while Cuby rolled past hers and Nerien’s spell struck me a moment later—and also missed.

Haroshi’s reflected spell—my own Unnatural Confusion—struck me a moment later, but did nothing: I already knew from the mountainside that I’d been hit enough times today to become completely immune, hence why I’d cast it at him; I’d just wanted to trick him into thinking it was an Invert Hostility.

I loosed my Fragmented Supercharged Devour Magic at Haroshi as he cast a Miracle that bathed Nerien’s weapon in white light. Nerien threw another transparent missile—another Invert Hostility—somehow casting it instantly and fueling it with the power of the miracle.

At the same time, Cuby, who had used her Flurry of Steel and could throw out more instantaneous abilities than either of us, threw both of her invested Invert Hostilities at Nerien and Haroshi.

And just as I spent my own Supercharged Moment of Mastery to dodge the miracle-fueled spell that Nerien had thrown my way, Ryxariel threw back her head and screamed, her shout missing Cuby—who dodged a second time by cartwheeling toward Nerien—but striking me and leaving me in a state of thoughtless terror.

Nerien spun backward to avoid the Invert Hostility coming for her, surely using her Moment of Mastery—but Haroshi, either because he was too focused on me or because he’d run out of defenses already, was taken.

A moment later Cuby barked out her first Rousing Command, and I returned to my senses to see Haroshi, our ally for a moment, stretch forth his hand and speak the command of a spell—a golden light flashed, illuminating the entirety of the massive chamber around us. Nerien, perhaps the only character who could have been affected, covered her eyes, blinded.

Ryxariel snarled, then cast a miracle and purged the Invert Hostility from Haroshi, freeing him, just as Nerien barked out the same word we used for Rousing Command, dispelling her blind—but they were reacting to us, now, just as we needed them to. As long as I could stay functional, could keep casting even for a second, my new Sudden Spell ability would let me control them while we fought the boss.

Because while the opening exchange had seen them mostly circumvent all my instant crowd-controls with what I guessed were all, or almost all, of their own tricks, we still had at least one Rousing Command—mine—and they had—perhaps wisely—focused on me instead of Cuby.

Ah, Cuby. Cuby, who still had her knockdown, her impale, her interrupting shout, her heal-reducing strike, her blinding strike, two dodges that were cooling down even now, and who I could see had begun combat not with her off-hand equipped, but with a grenade that she now lobbed at Haroshi even as she beat Nerien down to the ground, the psychic / pilgrim just coming out of a blind.

I used my Sudden Spell for the first time to cast a Sudden Fragmented Devour Magic at Haroshi—and just before Cuby’s grenade hit, he stretched out his hand and cast the same spell that he’d cast when he’d been Inverted. A golden light flashed around me, and to my surprise my Perfect Invisibility ceased.

It was a dispel—they had dispels. Instantaneous dispels that he could use twice in a row—something to do with his chosen boon? It didn’t matter; now that the initial gunfight had gone in our favor we still had an uphill battle to fight. The enemy had damage galore, but all three of them could likely heal better than I could, and their stock of miracles was not likely to run low.

With Cuby momentarily handling both of them, I used my Mighty Leap, jumping backward the way we’d come, before beginning to cast another Sudden Devour Magic, intending to invest it—it would lose its reduced cast time in the investiture, costing the same amount of “space” as a normal Devour Magic would, but that didn’t matter now—the investiture was almost empty.

Cuby responded to a quick thought that I sent her, throwing the invested Psychic Parasite at Haroshi just as I invested myself with a half-strength Devour Magic. Ryxariel appeared before me, apparently seeing the urgency of keeping us on our toes enough to spend an evasion ability just to close the distance—she raised two weapons and knocked me to the ground, but I used my own Rousing Command as soon as this happened, so that it was more like I was brought to my knees before pushed myself off the ground, using my lightning rod as a sort of cane.

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Cuby gave me a warning, and I didn’t even look before loosing my Devour Magic at her—Nerien had finished the spell she’d been casting since she’d cleared her blind and loosed at Cuby, who was seconds off from having a dodge.

Cuby was struck by an Invert Hostility. She spun in place, eyes locking on to where I was being shredded by the boss—and then I ate the debuff on her to gain a little Mana Shield before she could throw a grenade.

Haroshi let out a growl of frustration, used his own Mighty Leap to jump toward me, their crew apparently still determined to kill me first… and Cuby spent the last of our invested spells, the Hardlight Tether, winding one end around his leg and the other around her arm, the cable pulling taut and causing Haroshi to plummet to the ground, where he landed prone—another valuable half-second of their time, wasted.

I finished a Sudden Unnatural Terror, a 0.9 second cast, and invested Cuby so that she could throw it at Nerien to disrupt the psychic’s next spell. Then I gave her a Sudden Invert Hostility, the cast not-quite finishing as Haroshi got to his feet and slashed the Hardlight Tether away.

Then I noticed I was at 60% Hit Points and dropping—despite my near-100 Divine Resistance, despite the absorption I’d added to my Mana Shield, despite my massive Defense Rating compared to the dungeon’s level, a boss was a boss: Ryxariel was shredding me to pieces, had already done more damage than she’d need to do to kill me so far. And my Defense Rating was dropping: Reactive Armor was ticking down.

But we had a plan. Cuby could see Haroshi through the Psychic Parasite I’d given her, and I gave her a Sudden Devour Magic even as I saw my Mighty Leap reach its cooldown and immediately leapt away from Ryxariel, again back toward the way we’d come from and started casting a Sudden Invert Hostility—which I invested in Cuby—followed by a Sudden Hardlight Tether, a half-second spell that I also gave to Cuby.

And while this was happening, Cuby executed the next part of our plan. As Nerien came out of her terror spell, they seemed to notice that Cuby—even fighting one-handed, had brought the psychic pilgrim down to 55% simply by rotating through all of her strike abilities. Through the Psychic Parasite, she saw Haroshi notice this—and then felt the faintest flutter of anticipation at something approaching… before hitting him with my Sudden Invert Hostility.

Haroshi changed just as his miracle cooldown triggered—and he leapt through the air to come into range and use his miracle on me, healing me to full. The spell, weak and already suffering from the stacking resistance penalty, lasted less than a second, and he shook his head, screaming in anguish.

I noticed that Nerien had tried to get another spell off… but Cuby had stopped her with a point-blank grenade. A quick thought told me that her strikes were starting to cooldown: she could use her shout and her knockdown to stop the psychic’s next to spells, as well.

And I grinned. I felt the same satisfaction as I had in Oromar’s Bastion, watching the enemy fall. We weren’t beating them… but we were frustrating them at every moment, squeezing the seconds as we fought with an intensity that I’d never felt before. I just had to keep focusing on the next ability, then the next… survive, long enough that we could….

Ryxariel hissed, then threw out two more bolts of red energy—but Cuby dodged hers and threw her Devour Magic at me, clearing the stun debuff before I invested her with another Sudden Devour Magic.

“As you wish!” the boss said, grinning maniacally. She couched her weapons—and they began to grow with an intense red light.

Thus far, the devil had only attacked us with spells we could recognize from the devils we’d fought in the mountains. Sure, the stunning bolt hit multiple targets, and for longer, and the fear shout hit for longer, and the boss hit for much, much more damage—but so far the boss of the dungeon had been nothing but a very strong monster. As I watched her charge her weapons with a red light that grew so intense it left afterimages when I looked away, I realized that this was about to change.

But I also had time to give Cuby another Sudden Hardlight Tether, then a Sudden Invert Hostility—hopefully whatever the boss could throw out, we could get it to hit her allies. I had even started casting one of the essential ingredients of our only chance at victory—a Fragmented Supercharged Implosive Missile.

And then Ryxariel cut loose with her ability, teleporting to me in a flash and striking me with one glowing sword for more than 500 damage before teleporting away and striking Cuby for the same, almost breaking her Mana Shield in one blow.

Both of us reacted instantly when we saw the second teleport: I sensed what was coming and used my Moment of Solace, and Cuby threw the Sudden Invert Hostility at Nerien, who was down past 50%.

Ryxariel teleported back to me, smashed me with her sword for 0, then teleported back to Nerien—and hit her for 500, then Cuby… who dodged, then me again, then Nerien again… who was now at 20%, then Cuby, who took the hit but had used her Withstand ability, then me again, then Nerien, who had spoken the word of some spell and brought herself up to 40% before being hit down to 15%.

Cuby took another hit, and so did I—but then the boss’s massive damage burst was over, and Nerien wasn’t dead. Incredibly, she burned with the fire of the Vilefire Strike that halved all healing—Cuby had hit her with it, but Nerien’s heal had still been enough. A miracle?

What was more, Haroshi had tried to leap for me as all this was happening—and Cuby had still had the focus to yank him from the air with the Hardlight tether.

But I didn’t have the missile spell finished, and Cuby had been using her abilities to keep Nerien locked down. We watched, helpless, as the boss came out of her teleporting multistrike ability—an ability which, by my calculations, had the power to kill us both if used again—and then turned, snarling, to use one of her own miracles and heal Nerien completely to full.

And only then did my Supercharged Fragmented Implosive Missile finish casting—just before Moment of Solace wore off.

I leapt through the air, and it seemed like the whole encounter but Haroshi followed me, everyone maintaining our positions relative to each other as the whole fight shifted another 30 meters backward.

The boss continued to attack me. Cuby kept keeping Nerien busy as I loaded myself with a Sudden Devour Magic. Haroshi’s leap finally cooled down and he caught up to us.

We had one Rousing Command—Cuby’s—and two Devour Magics invested. Cuby had a single dodge, neither my Moment of Mastery nor my Moment of Solace were available, and Cuby informed me with a thought that while her Flurry of Steel was almost ready again, she’d thrown the last grenade.

But she told me as much, through the mind link, with a kind of mental smile. I was smiling, too.

I’d led us all back to the top of the broken stairway above Erialda’s swampy ravine.

We had them right where we wanted them.