Enno wastes no time wearing the new hunting vest, with the magical chest strapped on its back. After he puts on the new vest, his old hunting vest is put in the magical chest.
“Who wants the mace?” the arcanist asks the others in the party.
“How much for the mace?” Enno asks.
Maybe I can give Concetta the mace upon return to the palace! She’s unarmed, so I think she can learn how to use one if she wants to serve me better going forward, Enno waits for the arcanist’s price. Which is given soon:
“Two thousand gold”
“Deal!” Enno then forks over 2000 gold.
“Bonus boss?” Mijanou asks the others in the party.
“You see, milord, it’s good practice to ask the rest of the party about whether they want to fight the bonus boss before you try to pull it” Saronium explains to him.
“What’s a bonus boss?” Enno rolls his eyes.
“A bonus boss is just an optional boss” the rental healer explains to him.
“Oh and before we continue, bonus bosses range from being almost regular bosses, such as here and in Upper Perseria, to being bosses no one wants to pull” Mijanou comments on people’s attitudes towards bonus bosses.
And in Upper Perseria, too. I remember the tank pulling that dungeon’s bonus boss around like a draft horse, getting killed by exhaustion and bleeding, only to be subsequently saved by the angelic beacon! Saronium gets flashbacks from what caused her to flee the city when the saber dancer mentions that haunted park.
But this section of the park features different types of ghost monsters: no lamias, nor banshees. Instead of that, the monsters inhabiting this section include giant lizards as well as alligators of various sizes. And, of course, a hostile giant bird.
“I know what you did!” the hostile giant bird yells at Enno in a parrot’s voice, marking it as a target for him to shoot at.
That bird gets hit between the wings. Which makes the bird angry and makes it attempt to peck at Enno. Which hits his left shoulder after the flier took another bullet.
“What do you mean, you know what I did?” a confused Enno asks the giant bird, who takes off again without answering him.
This time around, Mijanou is the one pulling the mobs like a magnet. She even gets bitten by a big alligator on their way to the fork in the path leading to the bonus boss.
“Yes!” Bryzax answers the question of the saber dancer asked a while ago.
“Me too!” Enno answers after his herald.
Why is it that the DPS I got only seem to let me pull bosses and not trash? Bryzax laments the attitude of both the arcanist and the saber dancer, who both rush down the path leading to the bonus boss.
And it seems like Mijanou is getting increasingly maimed by the monsters she attracts, while the arcanist fires arcane missiles after the damage-over-time effects are spread among the monsters.
Which causes Saronium to leave Bryzax and Enno behind to chase after Mijanou and the arcanist. And later tend to them. Who both take bites from wildlife that cause both adventurers to bleed.
But it doesn’t take long for the two to fend off the giant bird. With more bullets and the giant bird slowing down. And crashing into the ground, losing more blood by the second after taking additional bullets.
When the two are finished dealing with the giant bird, Bryzax yells in the direction of the beasts the saber dancer somehow holds aggro on. In hopes of getting the beasts to fight him over Mijanou, who seems to have taken bites like crazy.
Which makes the whole scene a bloodbath since the saber dancer no longer needs to be concerned about dodging bites, leaving behind another puddle of alligator blood. Or at least these ghosts leave behind bleeding effects that feel far too real for their own good.
Once the trash is cleared all the way to the bonus boss’ so-called room, which is really a clearing in a peat bog:
“What’s relevant to you here is as follows: hit the big one before the babies” Saronium explains to Enno.
Immediately afterward, the bonus boss, Grootslang, which has an elephant head, as well as two elephant legs, and a humongous snake-like tail, throws his tongue at Bryzax, which makes him kite the boss around the room. And hence give free reign for the 3 DPS to hit him.
While remaining mindful of not getting trampled on by the babies, since the babies also have tusks of their own. Enno gets hit by one of the babies, and is sent flying.
But he doesn’t fly very far, and he lands on the big boss’ back. And at the rear, really.
While the sword dancer is busy slashing the monster on its shoulders, in hopes of dislocating the beast’s shoulders, and its head, Enno fires as fast as possible at the beast’s tail.
When suddenly, the boss makes a toxic fart, which causes the boss to release the tongue from Bryzax. And causes everyone to cough, as well as cause damage to everyone’s lungs, as the cloud of toxic gases expands to cover the whole room.
Saronium frantically casts healing spells on everyone, including herself, to prevent their pulmonary condition from becoming life-threatening. Even when the toxic gas is about to get absorbed into the creatures.
Enno feels a little short of breath after he began breathing the toxic gases. And more so the more he inhaled it, but people in the room only did so for a few seconds. I really hope Saronium can work her magic fast enough for me to even stay alive… the lord then falls off the beast.
Something’s not right. While the toxic fart hits like a truck, I never saw it make people short of breath! Saronium’s thoughts start racing against the clock, while she realizes that something might have changed since her last run of the Caladon Bog.
But then Enno starts firing at the hulking beast at point-blank and causes Grootslang to bleed somewhere other than at the shoulder plate, just not enough to bleed it dry.
Yet, the boss’ wound bleeding creates an opportunity for the arcanist to introduce magical infections that, up to this point, weren’t very effective. Much to his chagrin, even going through his rotation, the magical infections introduced with his spells don’t seem to have any more effect even with the blood vessels being exposed.
However, after much labor on the boss’ back, Mijanou has finally dislocated the boss’ shoulders, causing it to howl in pain and to slow to a crawl. Which makes Bryzax cut the tusks off the beast who, in a last-ditch attempt, once again lashes its tongue at the tank.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Only, Bryzax can tell that the sheer weight of Grootslang is very heavy to lug around as he’s pulling it like a draft horse. Until the saber dancer hits the boss’ tongue in its dying moments, at which point the herald holds the two baby Grootslangs together, hurt by the spread of the magical infections.
But then because the babies are much more fragile, they die much faster, with another scene where a treasure chest appears. This time around, the loot differs from what they got last time. Enno’s share is a gun he only heard about from the jester who talked about the demonic invaders fighting on the Heathrow theater. An assault rifle with a drum magazine.
He then stows his old hunting carbine into the magical chest on his back, while the saber dancer collects another weapon of identical power to what she currently wields. Very much like a katana, but with a much smaller guard than one.
“Who wants this… dha?” Mijanou asks the other four.
“How much for the dha?” Enno asks her.
If it doesn’t cost too much, maybe I can give the dha to another loyal knight because I don’t think it would be a good fit for Concetta, unless she’s clearly better with a sword than with a mace, in which case Yutolio gets the mace, Enno starts thinking about whether to get the dha from the saber dancer, who already wields an enchanted talwar.
“Five hundred gold” Mijanou names her price, which makes Enno count it.
“I’ll take it” the lord answers her, and then takes the dha into his magical chest.
“I think I’ll need to paint this new shield upon returning to Kaeshana!” Bryzax comments on the new shield he obtained from the bonus boss, whereas he obtained the same dha last time he fought the bonus boss.
The rest of the trip through the park happens more or less uneventfully, as the other three stash their shares of the loot in their respective magical chests. They keep fighting the very same creatures as on their way to the bonus boss, so that they get to the second boss.
Man this gun makes a difference in my ability to kill these monsters! With my old carbine, I could fire maybe once every three seconds. Now I can fire far more bullets and make much more DPS! Enno realizes that his usefulness has markedly increased in haunted parks because of his new gun firing semi-automatic bursts, as opposed to one bullet at a time.
And, of course, after the second regular boss dies, Enno is a little unsettled about the entire experience of going to a haunted park that he starts wondering in what ways his future haunted park will be better, or at least different, and at what costs.
“I wonder if it’s intentional for haunted parks to be this long… we still have one boss left to fight and we still need to tramp through a swamp full of monsters before we get to the end of it!” Enno starts lamenting about what he feels could go wrong in haunted park design.
“Usually, longer parks should reward more. However, what do you think could make a haunted park better?” Saronium asks him, before the party starts taking out the trash between the second and final bosses.
“Like, you know, no trash?” Enno starts complaining about what has been the worst experience of haunted parks.
“I forgot to tell you this, but there is a distinction between trash and adds in the haunted park world. But not now…” Saronium is interrupted by the need to cast a spell on someone getting hurt.
This time, the trash includes all the varieties of monsters fought so far in the park, outside of bosses: banshees, lamias, zombies (which everyone knows by now they must keep away from magic-users), giant birds and alligators.
But it’s much more straightforward to remain grouped here than it was at the beginning of the park. Especially when there are no forks to get from the second to the last boss on the path to the last boss.
Speaking of last boss, the fifty-headed hydra stands before them, in the middle of a very shallow lake.
“The core mechanics are as follows: leave the wisps alive, but some heads will slam the ground, never all at once though. Other than that, just kill the heads before the body and you’ll be fine!” Saronium explains what’s mechanically relevant to Enno before the fight begins.
The problem with leaving the wisps alive becomes readily apparent when Enno just fires in a spray-and-pray fashion at the hydra’s fifty heads. And, while the heads take most bullets, a stray bullet hits a wisp inbound for the monster. The wisp explodes some distance away but close to the arcanist, disfiguring him as he gets caught in the explosion’s blast.
“The wisps must be eaten by the boss!” the arcanist yells at Enno, while Saronium is patching him up.
But other heads eat wisps coming in from other directions, with their heads’ remains splashing on the melee combatants upon exploding. Blood, blood everywhere when the hydra’s heads eat the pink balls. And flesh, too. And Bryzax moves the boss to optimize the wisp intake but, in doing so, Enno is dangerously close to the heads.
As much as he would want to get out of the way, when the surviving heads start slamming the ground, Enno gets crushed by a head with scaly skin, breaking his ribs. And another head is about to eat him.
Yet, in the final moment, just before the bite, Enno fires at the hydra head threatening to eat him, rupturing blood vessels inside that specific head. Phew, that’s one less head to worry about, the lord sighs while more heads threaten to act.
As he’s enveloped by a green light, he feels like he’s recovering from his broken bones. However, even with fewer heads, the remaining heads are still threatening to eat him.
But, as Bryzax moves the boss around, Enno backs away from the heads’ reach, as does the arcanist. He then resumes firing at the heads, and the heads pop one after another.
When there are no heads left, the lower body is wide open for attack and it’s open season on it. The monster dies in short order and, as with the bunyip, the fifty-headed hydra dies leaving behind a puddle of blood.
A magic circle appears, revealing the final loot chest. Of all the things Enno gained today, there are pants, vest and rifle. His final piece of loot for the day is a hunting hat.
“I offer you the following: slippers, a robe, gloves and a circlet!” Saronium puts the pile of loot she earned from this run, which she knows is inferior to the gear she currently wears.
“What about the gear obtained from the previous run?” Enno asks her, thinking of his servants.
“I gave the vicar of the previous run the pieces she was missing. So I can throw in a wizard hat, about seven thousand for the whole set!” Saronium tells him.
“I’ll pay you upon return!”
The party enters the magic circle and then returns to the park’s entrance. And also they return to their carpet.
Once they return to the carpet, the two discuss aspects of haunted park design:
“Adds are enemies that appear in boss fights while trash is fought between boss fights” Saronium goes around explaining the difference between the two she couldn’t earlier.
“Then I would like my future haunted park not to have any trash!” Enno tells him.
“So you already understand that building the haunted park with the scariest encounters or hardest haunted park isn’t a viable recipe for operating a successful park. In general, haunted park regulars seem to care about loot yield per unit of time the most, and fight balance a distant second”
“And yet building a trash-free park with a large number of bosses will cost us a lot in loot!”
Saronium then asks both Bryzax and Enno. “Before I forget: how do you feel about going to haunted parks?”
“Tanking is a little scary, knowing that you are responsible for protecting your party, but there’s a first time for everything!” Bryzax answers her.
So there are people who earn a living being loot farmers, or should I say middlemen for high-end gear? Perhaps by taxing the resale of high-end gear, to the tune of the cost paid by the park, I could fund the operation! Now I have a better idea of how to pay for the park’s continued operation, beyond raising taxes on funeral goods and services, hearses as well as gear repair services! Enno has a flash lighting in his head about what revenue he could derive from his future haunted park.
“Even DPS might be a little scary at times. It’s intense in bursts” Enno responds.
“You said that you wanted your park to be trash-free? There may be a few who could find a trash-free dungeon a little empty, depending on the spacing between bosses, but if there’s good reason for that...”
“What do you mean?”
“The reason why I even accepted to take you through the haunted park was because there are things that are important to a haunted park operator that requires experience of running haunted parks as an adventurer to fully understand. People will be more likely to accept a park to be trash-free if, for example, the bosses knew that trash was useless, the bosses fell on hard times, the bosses were immune to a curse to which would-be trash isn’t...”
“And how should different difficulties be handled?”
“Sure, you can always make the boss hit harder and take more hits, but the big no-no of boss design is failing to provide extra mechanics when going up a difficulty. And no, an enrage timer doesn’t qualify as an extra mechanic”
“Enrage timer?”
“There are bosses that, in fatal dungeons, must be killed within a certain period of them being pulled, and these are called a DPS check in the haunted park world” Saronium explains to them as the carpet approaches the palace. “Sure, you will here from time to time about how a certain fight had engaging mechanics but that’s usually more for raids. For the type of dungeon you want to build, better err on the side of too easy than too hard, but don’t exaggerate!”