"Third time's the charm, right?"
"Shut up, Agil."
Agil's attempt at levity fell flat. Reaver's Requiem was undeniably tense as they made their way towards the << Myconid Queen of Embers >> for the third time in two days, and second time today. They had restocked and repaired the little durability lost from their equipment, all in preparation for a lengthy battle. They were ready for the raid against the field-boss to go well into the night.
It started much like the first one, which had happened earlier today - their first encounter couldn't even be considered an attempt. Drifter, Yuuki, Ran, Asuna, and Kirito were the vanguard and baited out the << Myconid Queen of Embers >>. They were the five quickest players other than Silica, who would be playing another role.
Agil, Liz, Merida, Wolv, and Shigio made the second group, positioned to switch with the first at any moment. Yuna and Sinon were at the midway point, with Vallerk guarding them. His only job was to protect the two long-ranged Reavers from the piercing roots with his massive shield.
Silica, Kizmel, and Nautilus were the fourth and last party. They were at the back, and weren't to attract the field-boss' aggro under any circumstances. Like Vallerk, the trip only had one job: to rush in and lure any player who got controlled until the debuff ran out.
Maybe the third time really was the charm, as Agil said. Although Drifter was more partial to experience than luck. If after two confrontations they still suffered a one-sided beating from the field-boss, Reaver's Requiem wouldn't deserve to be who they were.
Whatever was the case, this battle was going infinitely better than the other two. Forewarned, the players were doing their best to avoid hitting the masses of fungus on the << Myconid Queen of Embers' >> main body, and succeeding.
The << Myconid Queen of Embers >> was just a field-boss, after all. The main difficulty of the earlier raid laid in the fact they were working with little to no information. Now that they knew what to expect, everything was much simpler.
Drifter realized he didn't even need to move around much. Usually he was forced to keep changing positions, either to dodge attacks or chase after the enemy. That was especially the case with bosses, who turned their aggro to different targets every second. But the << Myconid Queen of Embers >> stayed rooted on the spot and, most importantly, only attacked one player at a time.
Now, Drifter wasn't just another spearman. He was a master of the weapon. He quite literally only let go of his spear when he was sleeping, and even then it would be on the side of his bed, not his inventory. And while those who didn't know him might hear the title Broken Spear Drifter and think it indicated his proficiency with the weapon, everyone else knew better. As did he.
Drifter never had proper lessons in the way of the spear, much less a master. Everything he knew he had learned by himself, through countless battles. Get good or get dead, as Argo said. He chose to get good.
And one of the many things Drifter learned while fumbling around and later mastering it was that there were really two ways to effectively use a spear. You could either be always moving, or stay absolutely still.
It wasn't hard to understand why movement was useful. Momentum added power to a blow. Once you took two or three steps, a simple jab might pierce all the way through someone. And staying mobile also added to your survivability. It was much easier to dodge when you were around going the other direction.
Or much harder, if you happened to be moving in the direction the blow was coming. You were literally setting yourself up for failure. So movement was really a double-edged knife. If you could read your opponent, 9 times out of 10 you could avoid their attacks. But if the enemy could read you, then 9 times out of 10 you were the one who got screwed. Once you were moving it was very hard to stop, even if there was a sword coming right at you.
Not moving had it's advantages. Your actions weren't nearly as telegraphed. And with a spear, staying still was sometimes the best. You could dig in, and let the enemy impale themselves into your weapon. Or you could just go wild, if the enemy was something like the << Myconid Queen of Embers >>.
Staying still also took a lot of guts. Because when you didn't move, you saw the sword coming at your face and had to make a conscious choice to react. Usually a snap decision. But it opened a lot more options. Dodge, deflect, defend. Even trade blows. You were more in control.
SAO players favored movement over staying still. Mobs were usually easy to read, and they couldn't predict your actions. Their code made it so they were always on the answering side. Just by a fraction of a second, but for a frontliner that was enough.
It wasn't necessary in this case. The << Myconid Queen of Embers >> had no wide area-of-effect attacks that they knew about. It also didn't move. So Drifter could stand absolutely still and lay it out on the field-boss. And, when it was his turn to be attacked, he could choose to dodge, block, deflect, or trade.
Deflecting was the option Drifter went for the most. By far the most dangerous if you excluded trading blows - which was suicidal against a boss, really. If he mistimed it just a little, Drifter would receive the full brunt of the attack with nothing in exchange.
But he was Broken Spear Drifter, one of SAO's twelve titled players, after all. When the field-boss smashed a giant root towards him, Drifter planted his feet on the ground and leaned forward, his spear raised above his head to parry the blow towards the sky.
In his experience, up was the best direction to deflect a blow from a strong foe. Any other way and the counterforce would cause him to stumble and even fall. But if he directed the attack upwards, it was much easier to maintain his balance and distribute the impact.
It was a novel experience. There was a small delay between the << Myconid Queen of Embers >> attacking with its root and then taking it back, and Drifter went all out in that interval, dishing out enormous amounts of damage against the immobile field-boss. Drifter wished he had thought to change to his halberd before the battle. This was the perfect situation for the heavier weapon.
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Even without the halberd, Drifter was dealing a hefty amount of damage, slightly impaired by the fact he had to pause and aim carefully at every blow, so as to not hit the white fungus and get controlled.
<< Sting >>, << Horizontal >>, << Snake Bite >>, << Double Tap >>, << Vertical >>, << Horizontal Arc >>, << Dirty Play >>, << Needle Storm >>, and so on... Basically every skill that didn't require him to get a running start was used repeatedly, as soon as he came off cooldown.
Of course, not all was sunshine and roses. It took a while, and the << Myconid Queen of Embers >> was already down to 70% Hap when it happened, but someone, in this case Asuna, slipped and struck the fungal mass on the field-boss' body. The white tendrils spread out and raced over her rapier, quickly infecting the fencer.
"Dammit! I'm controlled!"
By the time the exclamation had left her mouth, Nautilus was already rushing over. He << Shield Bashed >> Asuna just as she was turning to attack Kirito. The skill, which did almost no damage but stunned the target, was perfect for the circumstances. Nautilus was quick to draw Asuna's aggro and lure her away. Merida took her position, making sure the flow of the battle wasn't affected.
Shifting to the right a few steps, and giving Merida a wide berth to use her greatsword, Drifter searched for a better angle.
60% health was when the << Myconid Queen of Embers' >> attack pattern finally changed. The Reavers weren't flustered, since they already expected that. No boss would ever stay the same throughout a battle.
Drifter's keen eyes caught the fungus on the boss' body wiggling and inflating, and he was already shouting for the others to get back and doing so himself before green fire spread over it and the fungus exploded.
A ring of green fire burst out from the boss like a circular wave, sweeping over everything in a 10-meter radius. It just narrowly missed Merida, Agil, Shigio, and Wolv, the slower members of the vanguard group.
Drifter frowned as the fire died out, revealing the << Myconid Queen of Embers >> again. They had been forced to put some distance between them to avoid the fire, and the field boss took the opportunity to send one of the more deadly piercing roots at Ran. The elder twin barely managed to parry it, but still got a long laceration on her left shoulder.
"Press in, don't get pushed back!"
The command was slightly redundant, with SAO being a game of close-quarters combat, but they followed it nonetheless. Drifter sidestepped a root that flew his way, crossing paths with Kirito to get near the field-boss.
"Watch out for the percent-skills. Sinon, you are our spotter!"
Certain skills were only triggered when the boss lost a set percentage of its health, and the << Myconid Queen of Embers' >> fire wave showed every sign of being one of those. Drifter bet on it being used every time the field-boss lost 10% of its HP, but he asked Sinon to keep an eye open for any warning signs, in case he was wrong. He had no intention of discovering what the effect of the skill was.
After a few stumbles and two more controlled players - Wolv and Liz - Reaver's Requiem developed a pattern. Five or six of them faced the Myconid Queen as the frontline, with four or five others as a backup secondary vanguard. Whenever the field-boss' HP fell by almost 10%, Sinon would warn them and most would retreat, leaving only a couple of the quicker players to deal the last few blows before running away to escape the fire wave.
It was when the << Myconid Queen of Embers >> was down to 20% health that changes occurred again.
As usual, they retreated and the ring of fire swept through the area around the field-boss. Safely out of range, Drifter leaned forward with his spear held low, preparing a << Comet Break >>. He was taken completely by surprise by the two roots that pierced through the wall of fire, burning and spinning towards him.
"Hah!"
Forcefully canceling the skill, Drifter twisted his body out of the way, narrowly avoiding one of the roots, which passed mere centimeters away from his face. He wasn't able to dodge the second one, however, and it punctured right through his guard and stabbed into his ribs.
The root pierced all the way through his torso and came out his back. About 40% of his HP vanished just like that, and the remaining was falling fast. The green flames' debuff seemed to have been strengthened, and the spearman was forced to do the same Kirito did in their first battle against the field-boss. Without hesitation, he took out a << Health Crystal >> and used it.
The crystal shattered and his HP returned to the 80% mark, but instants later it dipped again. While it was still in the green, that wouldn't be the case for much longer.
"Drifter, switch and heal!"
He didn't want to, and started towards the boss before his brain caught up with his emotions and he realized it was the right thing to do. Sighing, Drifter stepped back until he was near Yuna, Sinon, and Vallerk. Shigio took his spot.
"You okay, Drif?"
The spearman smiled and patted his girlfriend's hair, earning himself a pleased murmur. She could see his health and the rate at which it was falling, so she knew he wasn't in danger as long as he wasn't attacked by the field-boss again. Still, there was always that emotional and illogical part of Yuna's mind that worried a disaster would happen whenever Drifter or anyone else got injured.
"Yup. Thank god crystals and potions don't share cooldown."
He downed a health potion to prove his point. Even then and with Yuna switching to << Rest >>, Drifter still lost an overall 50% of his HP to the strengthened debuff.
While healing, Drifter kept an eye on the battle. Surprises and scares aside, he didn't foresee trouble. Floor bosses were meant to be deadly. Field-bosses not so much. They tested and pushed the players, and claimed lives under unfortunate circumstances, but as long as they were capable and careful enough, it was more than possible to win casualty-free victories against them.
The result didn't differ from his expectations. Not every fight could be a life-or-death situation, otherwise everyone would have died before they got to the 3rd floor.
When the raid was over and the << Myconid Queen of Embers >> shrieked one last time, the first thing everyone did was look at the drops. This map had been a weird one, with the << Ashen Myconids >> that didn't give any loot or experience, and a field-boss first thing. They expected all the rewards to come from the field-boss.
They were right. The long, long list of drops had all the Reavers grinning happily, with Liz positively giddy. Most of the rewards were crafting materials, but there were also valuable << Health Crystals >>, << Paralysis Heal Crystals >>, and even a << Lesser Teleport Crystal >>.
Liz looked up from her own menu, an ear-to-ear grin on her face. She was holding a piece of wood Drifter recognized as part of a root from the << Myconid Queen of Embers >>.
"Sinon, I just found the material for your new bow."