When Enno returns to the park after having discussed what he feels should be nerfed in his park prior to its grand opening, and Mardonion revealing to him that Janick will drop a mount in fatal mode, he makes his way back to the other four, with Saronium’s emergency exit stone handed back to her.
Meanwhile, the construction crews taking up some rooms in the inn are going into the park to perform what people in the players’ world call a hotfix on the first two bosses, calling for the horses to die when their riders reach 50% HP, and fewer plows to be deployed by Seloniel.
“Looks like Janick could drop Marzban’s warhorse, but it’s not a given she will. Oh and the first two bosses will be nerfed” Enno reports the new developments before they pull Janick.
“You never told anyone about how Janick could drop a mount ridden by another boss. You never even planned for it!” Bryzax scolds Enno.
“I guess, since Marzban’s warhorse already existed in some form, the park’s builders believed they could add it to Janick’s loot table at a minimal cost” Enno adds. “In fact, adding Marzban’s warhorse to Janick’s loot table was their idea, not mine”
“Mounts as a reward for running the highest difficulty of a haunted park are nothing new under the sun” Saronium comments. “I guess I never told you about it because mounts didn’t fit the scope of what you wanted the park to be a quick source of!”
So you have mounts such as Upper Perseria’s garuda, Sun Disk’s solar car, Saronium is reminded of past mounts she obtained from haunted parks. But a warhorse? I guess, if people covet Belphegor’s solar car, surely a warhorse with fancy fittings could be a nice prize to some.
“Concetta, thus far you have been really useful to us despite your lack of experience of haunted parks. However, your use of alcohol magic will spell trouble for us because the last boss is an alcohol lich. That will make her far more dangerous than if we didn’t have you!” Mijanou warns the alcohol witch.
“How so? Wouldn’t a greater blood content make her lose focus and accuracy?” Concetta retorts, based on her experience of the last 3 bosses of the park.
“There is no telling how the power of her alcohol magic will be affected by her blood content” Saronium warns the team. “With Concetta, the one thing we can take for granted is that the blood content will increase faster than without. Also, we will get drunk and I will need to cleanse regularly to keep your blood content. Concetta, here you will need to cast spells to purge alcohol from your blood!”
So Saronium is basically asking me to vomit at certain key points of the fight… Concetta shudders at the implications of casting spells to purge alcohol from her blood. As Bryzax gets into position to take Janick away from the other four…
“How do you feel about fighting the boss you did the voice acting for?” Enno asks the alcohol witch before the pull.
Concetta trembles at the thought of fighting the boss she voiced lines for, even though, as understood by alcohol wizards, she currently has no blood content. “A little nervous”
“Pulling in three, two, one…” Bryzax signals to the adventurers before the fight starts.
“You killed Seloniel! Her phylactery is mine!” Janick deadpans the party in a drunken, undead tone of voice, when Bryzax leaps towards her with his dha in hand.
So it seems like Concetta’s own voice acting sends a shiver down her own spine.
Then seven adds are summoned: two gunners hiding behind pavises, two blacksmiths wielding hammers, two mercenaries wielding two-handed swords, and finally a thief. Bryzax yells in the adds’ direction, hoping to at least get the melee ones to attack him.
Once that is done, Concetta unleashes her shooter and then alcohol cloud at the mass of mobs. They get intoxicated, but then Enno needs to move around the pavises to ensure that the two fusiliers wielding the same giant rifle that he obtained from the electricity-stealing dragon can get hit.
Yet, Mijanou seems to have beaten Enno to the fusiliers, so he instead focuses on spray-and-pray on the adds in the boss’ vicinity, hitting the boss and the adds in their backs.
And, even as Enno hits the phantom thief, it seems the phantom thief keeps the adds up, and himself sober as he gets hit by alcohol magic. But, unlike his master, he knows better than to just let his blood content build up indefinitely.
But, with three people hitting the adds the phantom thief desperately tries to heal, there’s only so much he could do with stolen medicines. The adds get drunken and become less troublesome as their own blood content go up.
As Mijanou gets under one of the fusiliers’ barrel, the other wastes no time targeting her, but narrowly misses. Which buys her a few seconds to slice the first fusilier to death.
“There are alcohol clouds on the horizon!” Janick tells the party before casting an alcohol cloud spell, in a drunken voice.
As a result of the thief being focused on by Concetta and Enno, along with Janick casting an alcohol cloud of her own, the thief is forced to watch his own health.
The alcohol cloud smells and tastes like white ice wine, and a rather sweet one at that. But in that magic sweetness, everyone gets drunk, or worse still, hurt.
This makes Saronium cleanse herself of any blood content, and then she starts casting spells such as the revivification and then healing chain, in that order.
“Vomit, Concetta, vomit!” Enno yells at his alcohol witch.
With magic, Concetta vomits for a good 3 seconds, and her blood content returns to 0. But even Enno’s aim seems to have become worse, with his blood content becoming an issue.
Damn… I can’t seem to aim worth two beans! Is that the alcohol? Enno is wondering why is it that he always seems to miss his shots against Janick. I can’t see very clearly, but I must keep firing! And with his face turning red, by some combination of alcohol magic and anger at his lack of effectiveness, he tries to close in.
“Where’s Janick?” a red-faced Enno shouts.
Even so, as the adds guarding her at the start of the fight have been killed, it seems like Bryzax’s movements have become less coordinated. With his every move, he feels like he’s going to fall over. And his vision also gets blurred, too.
Luckily for the herald, everyone else is positioned behind the boss. And his wild dha swings only seem to affect the boss, if at all. Yet, he vaguely hears Where’s Janick echoing. Until, of course, he starts hitting one of Mijanou’s talwars. When he tries going for the mace hand.
It seems like Enno can’t hit the broad side of a barn after getting hit by the alcohol cloud! Saronium is left wondering who to cleanse between the other three. We’re losing too much DPS because of that! This might mean the difference between clearing the boss and failing the enrage timer!
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Seeing Mijanou still swinging her sabers at Janick, as does Concetta, makes the choice clear to her. Cleansing Enno of the alcohol in his bloodstream. Which makes Enno’s aim much better than before.
“Airstrike!” Janick yells in a drunken tone.
But when Enno gets cleansed of his blood content, the boss launches another attack that keeps everyone on their toes. And sends Mijanou right next to the tank.
When wine red circles start appearing on the ground, they start running away from the circles. As well as away from each other. But the tank struggles to keep control over the boss.
The circles tend to follow the adventurers. However, the circles are much bigger, and timed further apart than Seloniel’s meteor shower.
And for the next ten seconds, the magical cannonballs explode on the grey floor. This makes the whole room reek of red wine. And magical red wine splashes all over the place.
Yet, Concetta having cast alcohol spells on Janick since the very start caused everyone to take bigger hits. And Janick using more potent alcohol magic.
Then Saronium agonizes about who to cleanse. Everyone takes the same hits from blood content DoTs, so the question is: who, other than Concetta, would result in the biggest loss of DPS if their blood content stays high? But as everyone’s blood content goes up, all she can think of is keeping them up.
Only after the airstrike mechanic has their blood content stabilized. But man did it cause them to take a beating. And the whole floor is now stained wine red. The alcohol witch casts a spell to purge her blood of alcohol…
“Concetta, make the others vomit!” Saronium yells at the alcohol witch right after she vomited herself.
Enno, while still being affected by his blood content, keeps shooting at the boss. With the same lack of accuracy as when he was last drunk. I’m too far… away! Must… close in!”
As he closes in on the boss, Concetta casts the stomach pumping spell on him. The alcohol leaves his blood, but makes him vomit. Directly on the yellow-skinned lich.
On the other side of the lich, Mijanou also vomits on her as a result of the cleanse removing the alcohol from her bloodstream. Leaving a disgusting aftertaste.
By then, Bryzax has become ineffectual, stumbling across the room without any coordination. And rarely hitting the lich. Thanks to his recurrent failures in hitting the boss, he no longer has aggro on her.
Because the alcohol lich, in her magic-induced drunkenness, doesn’t perceive Concetta as a threat, Mijanou now must block and parry the lich wildly swinging her mace around. With one hand taking care of the mace and the other slashing the lich, she’s in for an unpleasant surprise:
“Vomit! Vomit!” a very drunken-sounding Janick yells in Mijanou’s face.
By casting the vomiting spell, Janick vomits with so much force that Mijanou is sent flying across the room. With this vomiting spell, her blood content is now down to zero.
That’s one gross mechanic, Mijanou muses while the foul smell of the boss’ vomit dwarfs the already unpleasant aftertaste of her own vomiting. Having broken a rib in the impact against the room’s stone wall, the saber dancer feels discomfort. Yet dashes back to her.
When Saronium goes around cleansing Bryzax, the latter has a wide-open visor. And when his turn comes to vomit, he could finally breathe, despite the aftertaste of vomit.
“The boss is on the puddle of barf! Watch out!” Mijanou yells, as the boss trips on the puddle of barf.
But tripping on the puddle of barf only makes the boss fixate on bludgeoning Mijanou. After she gets back up, the lich’s yellow skin turns red. And yet, the park testers realize that time is short to kill the lich’s corporeal form until the lich kills everyone. With repeated alcohol clouds.
“Clouds of alcohol are hanging over you!” Janick yells, with the alcohol clouds hitting far harder than on the first go.
Saronium struggles to keep the others up, but the boss is on its last legs. After a few alcohol clouds, Janick then swings her mace at Mijanou. And kills the saber dancer on the spot by cracking her skull open. Everyone else’s blood content rises to higher levels.
Then Janick goes after Bryzax. He dies by taking repeated mace hits, buying a few seconds for Concetta and Enno to kill the boss.
Damn it, the boss has enraged! Is that how it feels to fail a DPS check? Concetta starts sweating as she makes Enno vomit with magic. As soon as the vomiting spell goes off, she resumes hitting it with alcohol magic.
But the three keep hitting and running the enraged lich. By doing so, they avoid getting hit by her mace. In an environment whose alcohol smell gets more pungent by the second.
Sure, the room smelling like ice wine might make the aftertaste of vomit more bearable, but the boss gets hit by a burst of headshots from behind. Her body collapses to the ground.
“This is not the end of the alcoholic massacre!” Janick chuckles in an even more drunken voice, before dying.
It’s then that the boss’ second phase begins: the phylacteries. A wooden puncheon being the first one. Or more specifically, the outer one. Janick’s.
For this phase of the fight, Saronium feels like Mijanou is going to be more useful than Bryzax. Especially when Bryzax’s peak DPS is about half of Mijanou’s.
But with everyone alive still beat up from Janick’s enrage, Saronium must ensure that the DPS are alive. And drinks her last mana potion.
With Mijanou now being back up from having her skull fractured to death, the three DPS attack the puncheon. They keep working at it, but it seems like the harder they hit it, the harder they get hit. Just without any effect on their blood contents. As if some magical feedback mechanism protected the outer phylactery.
Yet, somehow, penetrating the wooden puncheon with gunfire causes the inner phylactery, Seloniel’s, to get hit. A hammer, visually identical to the one the park drops.
However, much to Concetta’s chagrin, she feels like alcohol magic is useless against it. Especially when the alcohol witch casts alcohol spells at the hole punched into the barrel. Which causes the barrel to rot, but the hammer is unscathed.
“Alcohol magic doesn’t work against the inner phylactery!” Concetta moans upon seeing her lack of effectiveness on the hammer.
“See, now you know what alcohol magic is ineffective against!” Saronium tells the alcohol witch. “Stop using alcohol magic and use fire magic instead!”
Damn… I’m paying the price for focusing too much on alcohol magic! Concetta feels a little relieved that she doesn’t get hit as hard by the barrel’s feedback mechanism because of her fire magic not being as strong. Especially when she only knows the basic fire spell. Which is fine for use in the kitchen, but in battle, causes her DPS to plummet.
The testers feel like a clock is ticking on them because clock sounds begin to be heard in the room. Which makes them feel like something bad will happen if they don’t destroy the puncheon quickly enough.
No time to focus on the hammer, the keg has priority! A sweating Concetta muses as she shifts her magical focus to the destabilizing keg.
And even Saronium, while she feels the clock ticking in on them the same as everyone else, starts hitting the barrel, confident that the extra DPS she could squeeze out of her body would be enough to destroy it. And stay alive.
Between bullets, saber swings, fireballs and mace swings, the cask falls apart. Which means that, for the purpose of the park, Janick is now fully destroyed as a lich.
With Saronium’s mana pool now sufficiently recovered, she can bring herself to rez Bryzax. Especially when the hammer proves much more resilient as a phylactery than an ordinary hammer. Even so, dents are already visible in the hammer.
Repeated attacks on the hammer for a certain amount of time causes its head to shatter into shards. And its handle also gets destroyed by fire magic.
“You might have stopped the alcoholic massacre for now, but alcohol will be your undoing!” an off voice tells the haunted park testers as the hammer gets destroyed.
For the final time in their test run, the loot chest opens. And a magic pine arbor also appears opposite the room’s entrance, serving as the exit from the park.
“Woohoo! Marzban’s ghost charger!” an overjoyed Enno realizes the other piece of loot he obtains from the chest is, well, another giant gun.
I ought to get this set dyed upon return to the palace! But selling these giant, long-range guns will help me offset the costs of building the park, Enno starts thinking about what to do with the loot from this park’s test run. I’m sure that people will want to pay through the roof for these if I make it clear they are prototypes from a new haunted park!
Concetta is a little unsettled by getting the grivpanvar’s xyston from the loot chest, wondering how exactly she is going to use such a long spear that, to her eyes, seemed clearly designed for cavalry use.
As for Bryzax, he gets plate gauntlets, while Mijanou gets Marzban’s hand and a half sword. A bit longer and heavier than her talwars, she feels like it should be sold.
And Saronium gets another robe, which she also plans on selling, believing she has no use for it herself. Yet, she feels a little unsettled by how big of a difference she thinks not having an alcohol wizard will make.
Which, upon entering the magical arbor, she wastes no time in telling Mardonion:
“Sir, I believe that the final determination of whether Janick should be nerfed would require another beta test run but without an alcohol wizard. Maybe then we can go open beta once closed beta ends” Saronium tells the park’s project manager.
“What difference do you think alcohol magic makes?” Mardonion asks her.
“I think the enrage timer of Janick’s first phase is tied to her blood content. Because Concetta proved to be a capable alcohol witch, her blood content increased faster than without one, and made her vomit faster”