Pain screeched through Ayn’s muscles. She was strong, but not that strong. Right before her fingers slipped, the turtle righted itself. Ayn tugged. Kayara and Sheyric scrabbled back into place on the turtle’s shell, looking far paler than when they started.
Their turtle sped up and swerved. It came within feet of the angry crab as it slipped to the other side of their harasser. The next turtle and pier came into view.
The giant crab veered off, following the cloud stepping stones farther out. Ayn had picked up on the pattern. Four little turtles, each a color they’d seen among the clams. The yellow one they were speeding towards made number three, which meant they’d have one more transfer before reaching whatever their true destination was. The crab was stuck on a fixed path which curved through the path of the little turtles. If it followed the expected pattern, it would grow more aggressive with each pass, and more eager to dump them into the sky.
The green turtle skid to a stop at the next pier, its momentum half launching the party onto the yellow one, which shot off with no hesitation.
Clouds whizzed by. The wind became a weapon as it beat against Ayn, forcing her closer to the turtle’s shell and to the rest of her party. If she could have laid flat, she would have. Instead, each of them had an arm around another’s waist—her arms around Sheyric, Sheyric’s around her and Kayara, and Kayara’s around Sheyric and Bren. Ayn grabbed at the edge of the turtle’s shell and latched on.
The giant crab approached once more, quicker this time. It clacked its claws, and their turtle went sideways.
Kayara cursed as she swung free of the turtle’s shell, an unconscious Bren dangling in her grip. Ayn would have cursed, too, if every muscle in her body hadn’t seized. The turtle leveled out. Kayara pulled Bren back up with minimal effort. Ayn hissed through her teeth. Kayara’s grace was something she usually enjoyed looking at. Right now, she wanted to strangle the ranger for not telling her the secret to her training.
The crab and turtle’s paths intersected again. The crab lashed out with one massive claw. Whether by luck or design, it didn’t simply pop the turtle in the face. Instead, its claw swiped over the top of the turtle, right at Sheyric and Miit. Ayn let go of the shell and raised an arm to shield them. The claw was three times larger than Ayn. It should have crushed her feeble attempt at blocking.
AEGIS OF AGILITY ACTIVATED
58 POINTS OF ABSORBTION REMAINING
The claw bounced off her shield. The giant crab reeled back, and their turtle surged on to the next pier. A bloody red turtle awaited them there. One more foray into death’s open jaws, then they’d be at their actual destination—if Ayn’s assumption was correct. She hoped whatever it was, it wasn’t even worse.
When their last ride dove into open sky, the giant crab veered away and left them alone. Ayn’s anxiety shot through the roof.
The little red turtle made a beeline for a massive storm cloud. Unlike the other white, fluffy ones, it roiled with electricity, black-gray rises and dips swirling in an angry, and nauseating, displays which flashed with internal lightning. After the shocks Ayn had experienced on the second floor, she didn’t even want to step foot on it. The turtle gave her no choice.
It raced to the edge of the storm cloud and stopped in an instant. All four of the party were tossed from its back. Ayn hit the cloud face first. Nothing happened. The cloud oscillated under her like jello, but no shocks came. Not even a tingle.
She scrambled to her feet, her eyes seeking the ones she worried about the most.
Kayara, who no doubt landed on her feet, held up a wobbly Sheyric. Miit still lay wrapped across his shoulders, albeit a little tighter around the neck. Bren, on the other hand, lay spread out on the cloud’s surface, facedown on the storm cloud just as Ayn had been a few seconds ago.
Ayn let out a slow breath. She could kiss that ranger. The thought came unbidden and froze Ayn’s thoughts. A series of loud clacks interrupted the hitch in her mind, and she followed the distraction with another wave of relief.
The giant crab fell from the sky. If it made a sound as it landed in the center of the cloud, it was covered up by the near constant rumbling of thunder.
BOSS ARENA SEALING IN 30 SECONDS
There was a large distance between the party and the boss. But, Ayn figured, considering the crab’s knockback attacks, more space was better, as was getting away from the edge.
“Bren!”
Ayn’s shout did nothing to rouse the mage. She shook his shoulders, rolled him onto his back, and when that didn’t work, slapped him.
BOSS ARENA SEALING IN FIFTEEN SECONDS
Kayara chuckled as Bren sputtered back into consciousness. His eyes immediately tracked to the edge of the cloud, and without further motivation, he sprung to his feet and charged toward the boss. Kayara and Ayn caught up and passed him, leaving Sheyric to bring up the rear.
BOSS ARENA SEALING IN EIGHT SECONDS
“I’ll keep Bren from becoming a free meal,” Kayara said. She dropped back, and shortly after, Ayn heard Bren yelp. Once again, Ayn was left as the only target of a massive boss. The life of a tank wasn’t so bad.
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BOSS ARENA SEALED
The crab stopped clacking. Its eyestalks tilted down to follow the little swashbuckler heading for its legs. It didn’t bother moving.
Ayn probably should have sensed something off well before her sabers hit one of the boss’s leg joints. It felt like she’d hit a brick. The force shivered up her arm. The giant crab, with all the care of a human squishing an ant, raised the assaulted leg and slammed it down. Ayn rolled, only to come into range of another of its six legs. Over and over, she dodged. Over and over, the King Crab stabbed, dancing above her until she ended up behind it.
A large silver post jutted from the storm cloud, as out of place as a fish in a tree, about a dozen feet away. It stretched up to almost the height of the boss. Another pillar of silver leaned against the first at an angle, attached at the tops by a rotating joint. It looked almost as if someone had tried to make a catapult, yet didn’t quite know how. Ayn darted for it. She had no idea what it was, but it looked like good cover.
She slipped between the two pillars, hiding under the “v” they made. The crab followed with far more speed than Ayn thought fair for a thing so large. What was the point of an agility build if so many things could catch up so easily?
A red light bloomed under her feet. She leaped back, then as the boss swung a claw in her direction, went back under the pillars. The light shifted from red to yellow. Recognition sparked in her mind. She dodged out the other side of cover, sparing a glance down as the crab swayed in place to take aim. A circle, lit up with an inner light, hid just beneath the cloud’s surface at the base of the first pillar. The circle was just large enough for someone to stand on.
The light switched to green. Ayn jumped back onto the circle, forcing the crab to stay in place as she danced away from its strikes. A few seconds later, and the circle turned blue. A crack of lightning hit the pillar’s joint. Ayn dove away as electricity crackled along the metal, resounding booms answering it from the cloud as the contained storm under her feet focused on the contraption.
The King Crab followed Ayn’s movements, twisting away from the pillars to chase her down. It got two steps before the pillars activated. The leaning pillar swung on its axis, arching up and over the first to slam down on top of the crab. A loud cracking, louder than the surrounding storm, echoed across the arena.
Ayn had continued to backpedal, unwilling to stay close to anything happening around the boss, and now stood a few dozen feet away. She stared, dumbfounded, at the result.
The pillar rotated back over, returning to its starting position while the circle flashed red. The boss lay flat. A large crack zigzagged down the back half of its shell, an indent showing where the pillar had struck.
A crab cracker.
Ayn had a lot of potential scenarios running through her head, but having to use a crab cracker on the boss wasn’t one of them.
The boss lurched to its feet. It wobbled for a second, then charged as if its life depended on it—straight at Kayara and the mages. Ayn couldn’t even blame the thing.
Kayara ran to meet the boss head-on, while Ayn chased it from the rear. Their weapons lashed out, almost in tandem, and bounced off the crab’s thick shell. No problem.
“It’s cracked on top!” Ayn shouted over the thunder. She’d thought about simply jumping on top herself, but considering what happened with the clam, she figured it was Kayara’s turn.
Kayara jumped without hesitation.
The crab’s claws snapped up, then snapped shut. The shockwave hit Kayara full force, slinging her across the cloud where she landed, cat-like, on her feet. Ayn immediately felt bad about roping the ranger into attacking. With a quick salute as if she knew Ayn felt guilty, Kayara charged back in.
The boss spun toward Ayn and pounced. Literally. It jumped as it had done during their race to the arena, sailing through the air as if spring-loaded with the intent of landing on top of Ayn. She was well out of the way before it hit the cloud.
As if it was all part of its plan, the boss aimed a shockwave at Ayn before she could recover her balance.
22 POINTS OF ABSORBTION REMAINING
The shockwave dissipated over her shield. Damn. She’d wanted to hold on to that for when she was playing patty-cake with the boss around the cracker. Now that the King Crab was spamming large area ranged attacks, it wouldn’t be long before the shield popped.
Kayara came flying over the crab’s back again. The boss knocked her away. She blinked out of sight in mid-flight. Ayn jumped as the ranger appeared a few inches from her face. The smell of sour candy overpowered the fishy ozone of the boss arena. Ayn’s earlier thought came back to haunt her.
“I think we need to crack it some more,” Kayara said, a wild gleam in her eyes.
“I…uh…yeah.” Heat crawled up Ayn’s face.
“Well, get moving, then. It’s following us.”
Ayn bolted.
“Hey, that’s the wrong way!”
Idiot, Ayn thought. Get your head in the game before you get everyone killed again. She forced her mind on to the situation at hand, locked onto the cracker, which lay in the opposite direction of where she’d run, and veered toward it.
The King Crab looked confused for a moment as its targets darted off in different directions. Its claws clacked a few times, its eyestalks swivelling independently of one another. As Kayara and Ayn’s paths converged near the cracker, it scuttled their way, all previous fear of the pillars seemingly forgotten.
Kayara skid to a stop in front of the cracker. “So, how does this thing work?”
Ayn slipped around to stand on the circle. It had gone dark at some point, but lit up readily on touch. “Standing here activates it. Red, yellow, green, blue, go.”
“Got it.”
Kayara whirled on the incoming boss. It skid to a stop out of range of the cracker and snapped its claws. Kayara darted behind the main pillar, letting the sound wave bounce off the metal. The pillar let out a high-pitched whine as it vibrated.
“Looks like it learned its lesson the first time,” Kayara said.
The activation circle was small. The area between the pillars wasn’t much bigger. In dodging the boss’s attack, Kayara now stood with her back against pressed against Ayn, with her rainbow ponytail trying to go up Ayn’s nose.
Ayn leaped away from the ranger. “I’ll get it to come closer.”
She, of course, had no idea on how to do that, she just needed the space. Desperately.
The King Crab chittered when it saw Ayn break from cover. It was a weirdly delicate sound considering the source, but it gave Ayn an idea. She dashed back underneath the boss. As expected, it danced as it had before, opting to try and spear her with one of its six legs. With each step, it shifted, stumbling slightly in the opposite direction of its attack. Ayn dodged between its legs, forcing it into a pattern that turned it until it faced away from the cracker. The cracker activated, slamming worthlessly into the ground. The boss didn’t react. Good.
“Again!” Ayn called to Kayara.
Ayn moved to the front side of the crab’s underbelly and stabbed its mouth. It was little more than a dark shape hidden behind tiny claws, but at the boss’s size, it still made an easy target. The crab seemed to think so, too. It lurched away as Ayn struck up with her sabers, hopping a few feet away. Ayn pressed the advantage. She harried the giant crustacean until it stood right where she wanted it. With a quick jump out of the way, the trap was set.
The cracker slammed down for a third time. Bits of shell flew from the boss’s back. Ayn grinned. Despite how rough the floor started, the boss was proving to be a breeze. She’d have it down in a flash, and Miit would be fine.