As the countdown expired, a zone-wide announcement spawned, announcing the arrival of the Great Old One.

[Look upon him and despair. He has arisen from his watery tomb to bring terror upon this world. The team which can take control of him will be able to force him to do their bidding for half an hour. Which team will triumph? There's only one way to know.]

An icon popped up on the mini-map, a giant black and white skull. It was just off the coast, at the midpoint that connected our separate islands into a single Y-shaped atoll.

"Right, Jones," Grandpa said. "Get your bird in the car. Let's take a look." We had already dispatched several dozen farming allies to disperse across the island wearing the all-seeing eyes. We needed info about our rivals. It seemed like cheating to me, but there was nothing in the rules against it. The only advantage we had over these guys was our allies. As far as we could tell, they had limited themselves to the fifteen combat miners they'd been allowed to bring in.

Several of our spies were stationed outside their outpost. As the Existalis combat miners emerged, information started to flow back to us. They all seem to be space orcs. It's hard to tell. They're wearing combat armor, armed to the teeth. A couple of them have shoulder-mounted cannons. No sign of any sort of vehicles or siege weapons.

Meanwhile, some of our scouts had reached the edge of the lagoon. Juana swore. “What the hell is that?"

Sage giggled and shared their feed. The creature had spawned about twenty feet from shore. It was like someone had taken an enormous skull and wrapped it in tentacles. It rose up out of the water at least thirty feet into the air. My eyes couldn't quite get it in focus. The thing just kept wriggling. There was definitely a sensation of empty eye sockets when I stared at it.

Then it lashed one shapeless black appendage toward the beach. Our spy turned and ran, and I couldn't blame him. "I got a remote Eye-Spy off," Sage said happily. "Here are the stats."

She fed them to us, and I boggled. "There's no way we're going to be able to take that thing down. Resistant to water damage. Resistant to electric damage. Resistant to fire damage. Immune to necrotic damage. Immune to disease. What the hell are we supposed to hit it with?”

"Holy damage," Dwight said, not looking up from his work.

"We can get that?"

"It takes a little bit of effort. Probably pure energy-based damage would work.”

“It's resistant to lightning damage."

"Yeah, but I looked at the classifications, and that's two different things."

"If you say so," I grumbled.

Existalis' miners were making straight for the lagoon. "All right, Shad, time to roll out," Grandpa told me.

My team was our vanguard. I was taking a couple of us up to the lagoon now. Bill, Bob, Mitch, and Annie would be coming with me. While I was sleeping, Mongoose had used the last three pairs of spawn point claiming flags to reclaim our points. Now, Juana redirected them into Existalis' path. "Do not engage in combat until we say so," Grandpa reminded me, as though I needed it. "Right now, we're on a fact-finding mission. Hang back and let the spies gather intel."

That didn't sit well with me, but it made sense. We weren't sure yet if the boss could kill our crafters. I assumed it could. Grandpa had warned them all to stay out of range.

Some of our creep wandered past one of our spies just as Existalis' vanguard arrived at the same location. The trio of armored orcs fell on them using a combination of weapons and abilities. Too fast for me to follow, but Sage and Arjun started making "Ahh" noises, so they must have gotten some intel from it.

"Right, Suicide Squad, move out," I told my men and Annie, and we set off.

"We're designating these three orcs as Red One, Two, and Three," I heard Sage's voice say in my ear as I led my squad past the army of crafters toward our front gate, which was now sealed against creep. As we approached, it opened. A couple of skeletons tried to get through, but we cut them down on our way out.

"Red team seems to be the vanguards. Moving fast, not as heavily armored as we expect the rest to be. Hit points: between 150 and 175.” Sage rattled off some values. "The specs we downloaded off Veda's transmission indicate the armor should have weak points, but they're probably not where we think. It may take a couple of shots to locate them. Despite their appearance, the joints are usually reinforced. Common weak points are shin and forearm."

"What good does that do?" Bill asked me aloud as we went. “I have a feeling these guys can walk off a couple of flesh wounds.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Their armor is powered up. If you damage one area, it has to reroute power and nanites to reinforce it. That leaves it exposed elsewhere. Damage it enough and you'll be able to get some headshots in.” I hoped I had understood the theory well enough.

"Red One has a slowing move," Sage reported. "Analyzing."

“Watch the chatter,” Grandpa said over our open comm lines. "Let's tell them what they need to know.”

“We have eyes on all of Existalis' miners. They're heading right for Squid Face up there. Nobody's paused long enough to set any traps. They're going for a quick cap," Sage said confidently. “No, they needed to know that, Grandpa. All right, fine.” She shut up.

I didn't mind having her talk. It was comforting. Even though we had been reassured that Existalis wasn't waiting for us, I still jumped at every noise I heard and felt myself. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

We proceeded through the jungle. Every few hundred feet, one of our spies popped out of the bush and waved encouragingly at us. I waved back, but I wished they'd let us do our job. "We're starting to put together a nice profile here," Juana said over comms. "I'll be doing most of the controlling of the conversation, unless there's something Arjun and Sage specifically need to say."

Good, I thought, but didn't say aloud. Juana was much more laid back than Sage. Not to mention easy to listen to. "They've engaged the boss," Juana warned. "Stay back. We'll get you a video feed once you're ready."

We were approaching the edge of the jungle. I stopped just short of the beach, crouching behind a large palm tree. We peered through, past the last few pieces of brush.

Fifteen orcs wearing power armor were running in zigzagging patterns around the great beast. Seeing it with my own eyes didn’t help me understand what I was seeing. It glistened in the sun, writhing, an enormous skull covered in a living oil slick that slithered around its surface, gathering together into clumps and then lashing out with pseudopod limbs. One gnawed tentacle smashed into an orc, knocking it up onto the beach. "Holy shit!” Juana said as the orc got back to her feet. “He didn't die!”

I had started being able to tell male orcs from female based on some of the symbols they seemed to wear on their armor. A diamond pattern along the neckline meant female, while circles meant male.

“She,” I said, though it was completely irrelevant. “How much damage did she take?”

“Two hundred and fifty-seven points. Must be one of their heavily armored units. She's got four hundred hit points.” Juana sounded disbelieving, and I understood why. None of us had over two hundred health. “That gear is incredible.”

The boss spun quickly around, its surface nictating and retracting, then pushing outward. A giant wave of water shot out all around it, knocking the orcs over. Two of them washed up on the beach in a pile of mangled limbs. They vanished. "Did you see that?" I asked.

"Sure did," Sage said excitedly. "That was all water damage, by the way.”

Water damage. My hat's set bonus meant that while I was wearing it and the drover's coat both, I was immune to water damage. I mentioned it on comms.

"We know," Sage said. “We were hoping that this boss would do a lot of water damage. It's a big part of our plan. Right now, though, we've got to buy time. Look at its health bar.”

I checked. The boss was still green, but it was ticking down fast as the orcs lobbed grenades, filled it with hot plasma, or tossed bright white spells at it. I looked at my team. "Wait until I give the signal," I said. They nodded, their faces wary. This was the worst. Sitting here waiting, watching.

"We've got a profile for almost all of the orcs now," Sage said cheerfully. "Arjun is compiling strats. Just hold tight." I nodded agreement, not that she could see me, and we watched.

Suddenly, the boss gave a loud hooting cry from what orifice I couldn't tell, and a pack of water droplets the size of VW Beetles appeared on the beach. They began to make their way toward the orcs, who turned and fired at them, breaking them into smaller droplets that slithered about, then reformed.

One of the orcs pulled a rifle the size of a small cannon out of his inventory and fired, shooting a bright white beam at it. Whenever the beam hit, it froze the water droplets. They broke into a dozen small pieces and then dissolved into the sand. "Ice damage," Sage diagnosed.

“I could have guessed that.”

"Shut up, Shad. We're keeping the channel open, remember?"

The boss was below 60% health now, its health bar yellow. "Okay, so that was probably a health-based move, not time-based," Juana said. "We need to watch as much of this fight as we can."

The boss lashed out with a tentacle and caught one unlucky orc by surprise. The orc was thrown back into the trees. It hit a trunk and sunk to the ground with an unhappy thud. "I don't think it liked that," Sage said cheerfully. "Is he dead?"

None of us had eyes on the fallen orc, but I could tell on my mini-map a couple of our spies were crouched not far off, well out of range of the boss monster.

"Yeah, he's dead," Juana said.

"Great." I looked back at the boss. Its health was below 50%. It sent another wave of water on the orcs fighting it. Another one died, leaving ten to go, but they were making steady progress.

"Hold tight," Juana said. "We want to try to let it get to 30% health before we move."

"You hearing this?" I said to my team. They all nodded. Bill and Bob looked almost relaxed, but Mitch and Annie seemed nervous. They didn't have as much experience with this as we did. I tried to smile reassuringly. "We'll make it," I said. "We've got a plan."

The boss monster hit out with its tentacles again. It seems to have a rhythm there. Spinning, contracting, expanding, thrashing, volley of water. "The tentacles are doing a lot of water-based damage," Juana reported. "Shad, you could probably take one hit, but no more than that.”

“It's also got force damage and crushing damage," I said as one tentacle came down right on an orc. He survived, dashing back and draining a health potion before running back into combat and lobbing a grenade. “I’m not immune to those.”

“So don’t get hit,” Sage said helpfully.

"At 40% and falling, be prepared," Grandpa said. "We've got a battle plan here, but no plan survives contact with the enemy."

"Right," I said. I looked at the enemy, at the boss, and at my team. We understand. The tension mounted. I felt nervous, more nervous than when I'd been in a middle school play with a walk-on role that I'd managed to flub every time in practice.

The boss ticked down to 30%. It gave another call, bringing in a shower of water bubble monsters. The orcs cleaned those up fast.

"Go!" Juana said in our ears and we ran in.