Jumping through the portal brought us into a massive circular room made up of solid blue and white bricks that each was bigger than a house. Perhaps calling them stone sections versus a brick was a better decision I thought as I admired the thirty-foot by thirty-foot blocks. The room was over three hundred yards in diameter and spread out across the room at points like a compass was another huge room connected to the main one.

“Oh, dragon shite,” Turk cursed with a groan. “You all see what is in each of those rooms, right?”

I nodded a small gulp came out of my mouth.

“Is that seriously a different boss in each room?”

Turk kept spinning around slowly and nodded.

“Looks that way. A Taxabi, a yeti, a merman, and a rock golem. I’m hoping we won’t have to fight them all at the same time.”

Vreek glanced around nervously and I could tell he was scared at the prospect of fighting all four of these bosses. I wasn’t sure but they looked to be fifteen to twenty feet tall each. From this distance, it was difficult to tell.

“Should Turk break the gem now?” Vreek asked.

Dirk scoffed, and I gave him a look to hush him.

“I know you are scared but I am thinking we will be fine. I think we can fight each boss one at a time. Maybe if we keep them in the room they are in now.”

Turk nodded and motioned for us to follow him closer to the Taxabi. She was a massive monster of death and hotness all at the same time. Her outfit barely contained her massive chest or glutes. Worse yet was the two swords she was dual wielding. Each of them glimmered with a yellow light and was ten feet long at least.

“The cavern she is waiting in is only maybe seventy-five yards wide. It will be a tight fight, but this reminds me of some of the boss zones we faced in our games. If they cross the line into the main cavern, then all the bosses will come, and then we will be screwed.”

“Those fights never went as planned. Someone always grabbed agro and ran like a fool,” Dirk stated as he pulled out his daggers and started stretching. “If she agros on you or Vreek, we are screwed.

“He is right. I am the weakest one here," Vreek stated as his frustration of being useless was evident to all of us. "I doubt I can do anything against a creature like that.”

I stood there and tried to figure out what the best course of action would be. Vreek was right, as much as I hated it. He was going to die quickly if the boss went on him.

“Ok, I have a plan, but Vreek will not like it at all.”

“You sure about this?” Dirk asked as I rolled my head around and swung both swords in a few small circles to make sure my shoulders were loose and ready.

“It is our best option. Do you have a better...”

“There is no better plan,” Vreek interrupted as Dirk was about to reply. “You three will do all the work. I will hold the gem, ready to destroy it if we need to flee. Zolb will be better equipped to handle her with two swords.”

Dirk grunted and nodded. He had offered to give Vreek a few of his spare daggers. Doing so had not gotten the response he had desired or hoped for from Vreek.

“Remember to let me get agro. Do not jump in too early. And Vreek I’ll trust you to use your judgment on the need for the gem.”

I charged the female boss and the moment I crossed some invisible line in her room, she sprinted forward toward me. Each of her steps covered a good ten yards and in three steps we were toe to toe. Or I guess I was toe to my knees.

She swung both swords down and across at me, and I held up Light Drinker and Vreek’s sword to parry. Her attack connected against both swords and suddenly I was flung across the room, and I crashed into the wall with a massive thud. It did not hurt as bad as it looked, but I risked a glance at Vreek and saw him holding the bag ready to smash it.

The boss sprinted toward me again as I readied myself against the wall. The room was round, like a colosseum. The walls were made of those same solid stones and went all the way to the ceiling about sixty feet above us. I needed to use the wall to help against her attack.

In three strides, she was again at me, and the same attack was coming again.

Having braced my leg against the wall I lept toward her and barely missed the swords coming at me as they clanged against the stone wall I had been up against. I had hoped her swing would hit the stone walls. Once they had connected, it staggered her just a little bit from the strike. Her weapons had not damaged the stone blocks at all, but instead, sent the force from her strike up her arm through her swords.

I rolled to my feet from the leap and swung Light Drinker, raking it right below her kneecap. A huge cut was scored and she screeched in pain and brought both swords down on me this time.

Dodging between her legs, I let out another strike, this time on her Achilles, and got a small gash across her heel before she lept and rolled away.

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She was furious as she screamed and glared at me. I could see her eyes starting to glow with a strange yellow light.

“Watch out for some skill!” Turk shouted.

Dirk and Turk were still waiting to engage from outside the room. Neither one of them wanted to risk drawing her ire and having her attack them, so all they could do was watch and wait to see what I could do.

She took in a huge breath and then exhaled letting out an ear-piercing roar.

I almost dropped both swords as I went to my knees trying to cover my ears. My eyes were going fuzzy, and my head felt like it was going to explode. It seemed like it went on forever, but I knew it was only about ten seconds. I could feel blood coming from my ears, and when she stopped roaring, she dashed forward, swords already raised to attack.

I struggled to rise to my feet. My head felt like it was spinning, and I felt like I wanted to throw up. Raising my swords to try and block the attack in some way or fashion, I prepared for the worst. This was going to hurt in ways I could only imagine.

As she took the last step between us, I saw the swords coming down toward me and saw that my swords would not make it in time.

Two white arrows flashed before my eyes, catching her sword on the right and driving it into the other one and they both crashed down a foot from my right side.

Dirk suddenly appeared behind the boss and drove both daggers into the calf of the leg on which I had cut the knee. The boss kept turning from the momentum of her swing and tried to fling Dirk off as he held both daggers in her calf and slid them down as far as he could.

Though my ears felt dull and hollow I heard Vreek shouting at me.

“MOVE!” I heard Vreek yell. “Move, or I will break this!”

I willed myself to stand and move. I could feel the heart helping me to regain my balance and my ears were not ringing as bad as they had at first, but I still had a good minute before I would be able to be of any use.

The boss tried to kick Dirk with its other leg but stumbled as the damage he had done and the cut on its Achilles did not allow her to plant how she had prepared. She fell back as she kicked up and away, missing Dirk completely.

Dirk sunk both daggers into her same leg and ran them along the sides up to her kneecap. Huge gashes appeared, and he jumped into the shadow under her hip and disappeared as she tried to slam her sword into him.

I stumbled away as I tried to watch. Everything was happening so fast, and I knew I needed to make a little distance between her and myself. As I moved, arrows started flying at the downed boss. White and red arrows streaked by like a Fourth of July firework show. They impacted all over the leg that we had worked together on, and as I moved toward the middle of the room, away from the wall, I saw the bottom half of the leg get blown off after about ten shots struck over and over in rapid succession.

“Keep coming this way!” Vreek shouted as I saw Turk moving to the other side of the room.

The boss was trying to stand, but she was having a hard time. She ended up using her sword to help her balance yet with one leg gone from the knee down it was not a steady stance. Just when she had gotten to a point of standing, balancing on that one leg, Turk fired off a few more shots trying to knock her down again.

Her eyes started to glow yellow again, and she began to inhale again.

I dropped both swords this time and plunged my fingers deep into my ears.

Right as she started to roar like last time, another barrage of arrows came right at her mouth. Her roar was cut off as they bombarded her open mouth and knocked her off her foot and back onto the ground. As she fell, both swords slipped from her grasp, and I could feel the impact of when she went down.

Dirk appeared suddenly behind her and I saw him go for her eyes. He jumped up and I saw his daggers and hands go so deep into her eyes that his forearms were plunged inside them. Her eyelids closed, and she flung her head back and forth, causing Dirk to get tossed back and forth as his hands were trapped in her eyes.

Instantly her eye sockets erupted in green and red lights as I knew he activated the magic in his daggers. The boss gave one last scream before she stopped moving. I could only imagine the magic had gone straight to her brain.

Dirk put his feet against the boss's forehead and pulled both arms and daggers from her smoldering sockets.

I heard Vreek approaching me and picked up both swords as I turned to look at him. I felt almost one hundred percent now. The heart we had eaten had done its job.

“I almost had to use this,” Vreek said with a grin as he held out the pouch toward me. “It is a good thing your sons were able to save you from being cut in half.”

I gave a weak laugh and nodded.

“I am glad too. For a moment, I thought I was about to find out how bad a sword through one's body really felt.”

Vreek laughed and tied the pouch back to his hip.

“Glad you didn’t die, Dad,” Dirk called out as he approached me. “Turk shouted that we needed to save you from yourself.”

“I did not expect a boss to have an attack like that. It makes me wonder what attacks the other bosses have.”

“Well, whatever they have, Turk and I got your back, Dad.”

I chuckled and put up my sword, and handed Vreek his back. I walked over to the boss and picked up one of the two swords she had dropped. It was taller than me and was only usable as a two-handed weapon.

“I may give this a try on the next boss. I can at least throw it at them as well.”

Turk showed up and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Next time, please do not die so early in the fight. It was good that I had practiced hitting weapons during a swing on the other floors.”

I nodded and noticed that the boss was dissolving. I had totally forgotten to try and get the heart.

“Arggg..,” I complained. “I missed trying for a heart.”

“There wasn’t one,” Turk informed me. “I just tried for it, and there was no heart inside the body. There does look to be a chest, though.”

I turned and saw the ornate silver chest where the boss had been. I stood there in shock.

“Do you think each boss drops a chest?” Dirk asked.

“Only one way to find out,” Turk replied with a smile.

“Well, I want to know what is in the box first!” Dirk exclaimed.

I nodded and walked over to the chest. It almost felt as if it was calling out to me.

“I’m going to open this one if no one has a problem with that.”

Each of them smiled and motioned for me to go ahead.

I felt the silver box in my hands. The embossing on it was cool to the touch. There was a small clasp that I had to undo before I could lift the lid. After pressing the clasp and opening it, I used both hands to lift the lid.

“Oh, yeah!” I cried when I saw what was inside.