"Are we ready to go?" Daniel asked.

Rick shook his head. "Hang on." He studied the area for a couple of minutes before addressing the team. The boss was on a raised platform with the large anvil in its center. The platform filled that whole end of the chamber. From it several deep steps lead down to the main floor. Down the center of that floor the three massive metal arms were mounted to a pivot set in the floor. On other end of each arm, high above the floor, a Levistone crystal was mounted.

"We don't know how far we're going to be able to drag him, so we're going to play it by ear. But there are two main plans. If we can drag him down off the anvil's dais, then we will kite him up and down this room past the crystals." He pointed to the lower floor that ran past the levistones and their mechanisms.

"We'll lay a trap along there near the first stone and then see how far we can drag him down the room. If we can get him past this first pivot..." Rick pointed to first arm. It was learned all the way to the side with the levistone itself leaning against the wall, but the crystal was so high up there was room to walk under both sides, so the party could kite the boss down and around the base before heading back toward the anvil.

Gambit was nodding, and that was a good sign for Rick. "That makes sense. If he leashes at some point, then we'll know how far we can take him, and we can try again."

"Exactly," Rick said.

"What if we can't get him off the platform?" Daniel asked.

Rick spun his finger in the air. "Then we'll kite loops around the anvil."

Daniel was starting to nod. Nia had been quiet, soaking the whole thing in, but she did not appear to have any objections.

"I'm going to call out who he has aggro on. If he just goes after the closest, then we're going to let Gambit do most of the kiting."

The Mongolian nodded. "That makes sense to me."

"But if he's going after ranged DPS, the two of you will alternate. You'll both need to stay in the line we want to kite him so that we can get him over Daniel's traps. If he stays on whoever's shooting him, then Nia's going to do the kiting."

"Okay," she said with a slight head tilt.

"And Daniel will be running along setting traps. But if the traps make him aggro on Daniel, then he's our kiter, and he's going to run ahead to get to the next trap. The rest of us will try to slow the boss down between them. Hopefully, he's not immune to slows. If we can't keep him off whoever's kiting and the damage is too high, I'm going to call it, and we're going to run like hell back up to here and down the tunnel."

Now everyone was nodding with looks of determination, and Rick knew they were ready.

They stepped out into the smithing chamber. The floor sloped down to the lower level. They walked past the first of the levistone pivoting arms.

"There are three of these," Nia observed. "Do you think it might be phases?"

"Yeah," Rick agreed. "That's been my theory, but I guess we'll see."

"Fight phases?" Daniel asked. "Like in that other dungeon?"

"Exactly." They were nearing the foot of the dais. "If these relate to phases, then these arms will probably move. We'll have to see and adapt."

Now that they were getting ready to pull the boss, Rick's nerves were acting up. The idea of doing a boss fight cold, with no tank and no research, and expecting to down it on the first pull was mostly ludicrous—if this was anywhere near as hard as the games he had played in the past. But this world was on hardcore mode, and that's what they had to deal with.

---

The boss had stopped his raving and was working over the anvil, muttering to himself. As the party approached the foot of the stairs, he straightened up and turned.

"Interlopers! Don't interfere with my restoring the glory of Hydrilium!"

He gestured dramatically. "I have restored the great levistone forge and am busy the crux of remaking the control crystals! Do not interfere!"

As the boss tanted, Rick said, "Daniel, did you set the first trap?"

"Yes," the soldier nodded.

"Hey, isn't that the thing the hermit wanted us to get?" Nia asked, pointing at the anvil.

Rick squinted. Sure enough, laying in the center of the huge anvil was a box with handles and a crystal inside, just as the hermit had shown them.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Great," Gambit grinned. "That means we can do this. That means we can do two quests at once."

The boss was still rambling about his plan to restore the Flying City. Rick tuned him out, focusing on the task at hand. His heart was pounding, but he knew they had to act fast.

"Behold the power of the Levestone Forge!" the boss shouted.

There was a screech of protesting metal, and the first of the three huge crystals started to move. The arm it was mounted to slowly pivoted, lifting the Levestone from the side of the room and bringing it up towards the vertical.

"New plan!" Rick shouted. "Gambit, hit the hinge on that thing!"

As he shouted, he saw Nia and Daniel hesitate. "The rest of you, stick with the plan! Open fire!" Rick called and was relieved to see them leaping back into motion.

Daniel knocked an arrow and let it fly, while Nia readied her blowgun. "Insert name here" started trundling down the steps with huge strides, his weapon—a humongous hammer inscribed with glowing runes—lifted over his head. Daniel’s first arrow thudded home, and a stream of blowgun darts hit his chest

"You little pipsqueaks! How dare you run away from me!" the boss bellowed. He lifted his left hand, and a swirling ball of fire started to form above his palm. A cast bar appeared over his head, but he didn’t stop striding forward. Just as the bar was nearly full, he stepped on Daniel’s first trap.

"Arrgh!" the boss yelled as tar splattered up his legs and spikes impaled his feet..

Rick heard Gambit slamming his sword into the metal armature over and over, but he didn’t have time to look and how he was getting on. The boss, slowed by the trap, still continued forward. The ranged party members continued firing. Rick let fly a force wave, but as he expected it did almost nothing to the boss.

After two more strides, the boss lifted his hand again and started summoning another fireball. This was familiar to Rick. Many bosses had mechanics where, if a tank wasn’t near them, they would start throwing overpowered ranged attacks. It was a mechanic designed to keep adventurers from doing exactly what their party was doing now, fighting a boss without a player tanking.

The question was, would it shoot at the person with the highest aggro, or would it pick a random target? And how fast would that fireball move? Rick had his hand up, ready with a Protection, but he didn’t know who to put it on.

More arrows thudded into the boss’s chest and arms, and a row of darts stitched themselves across his face. He grumbled but didn’t stop casting the fireball. As the cast neared completion, Rick threw another Force Wave, aiming at the boss’s upraised arm, and his spell hit it squarely. But it did not interrupt the boss’s cast.

The bar continued rising, and the boss’s cast completed. He lowered his arm, and the fireball hovering above his palm shot out towards the group. Rick waited as long as he could, trying to see where the fireball was headed. He wanted to yell at the two of them to scatter, maybe to make it easier to see which it was going for, but it was much too late.

The flaming orb roared across the room. Nia threw herself behind the hinge that Gambit was attacking and an instant later the Mongolian warrior lunged forward and got behind the hinge himself. Rick quickly threw Protection onto Daniel, the last party member standing exposed.

The flaming ball slammed into the shell, splashing across. The translucent barrier popped instantly, but its job was done—mostly. Daniel cried out as the flames scorched away half of his health. Rick threw out Healing Mist. The spell rippled across all three DPSers, even though the other two were full, which filled Rick with a sense of pride. At least he knew the AoE effect was working as the tooltip had claimed.

It was then that he realized he could have had the two stand near each other. Would the ball’s damage have been split across them? He would have been able to heal them both up at once. And if the one with the shell targeted on them stood in the front, then the one behind would be protected. At least, that’s how it should work. But would he dare risk it? Based on how much damage it had done, the fireball would kill someone or leave them dangerously close to death. It wasn’t the kind of mechanic to experiment with when the stakes were high.

"Fools! You can’t escape my wrath!" the boss bellowed as he started forward again.

"Daniel, another trap!" Rick called. But the soldier was already hunching down and rummaging through his pack. He pulled out another bundle of spikes and tar bombs and set about planting it.

Nia had quickly reloaded her blowgun and stepped out from behind the Levestone holder. The crystal was still pivoting, climbing slowly towards the ceiling and straight up. It was nearly there.

Gambit leapt out from behind the pillar and started swinging his sword again. Rick saw the health bar that had appeared over the hinge was three-quarters of the way down. Was the crystal coming up just a signal of the next phase? Or was it something more sinister? The fact that they could damage the hinge told Rick it was almost certainly something they needed to prevent. Who knew what would happen when the crystal was finished moving? He didn’t want to find out. Finding out the hard way was not an option.

"Nia, hit that hinge too!" She turned and shot two blowgun darts at the hinge. One bounced harmlessly off the metal, and the other stuck in a crack of the joint. But they both took some of its health bar down.

Gambit shouted and swung one more mighty blow. The hinge let out a sproing. It didn’t look any different, but the armature holding up the crystal rumbled to a halt a few degrees short of vertical.

[Phase one complete]

Rick felt relief wash over him.

The boss roared in frustration. "No! You fools, you will not destroy the forge!" He turned and dashed, shockingly fast, back across the room and up to the anvil.

The boss yanked the second lever down. Everyone turned as the second crystal screeched and started to lift away from the wall.

"You won’t stop me from showing the forge’s true power!" The boss started back down the steps, headed towards them. It only reached the bottom of the stairs before lifting its hand and starting its fireball cast.

"Gambit, the second hinge! Everyone scatter!" Rick shouted. Both Nia and Daniel hesitated only an instant before taking off for the other side of the rectangular room.

Rick cursed himself for giving ambiguous instructions. He knew better. "Daniel, stay there!" he pointed back to where Daniel had planted the second trap. "Stay on that side of the room! Nia, you’re on the other!" Rick pointed to make sure they understood.

The boss’s fireball cast was more than halfway up already. Would spreading out give him enough time to react? Rick wasn’t completely sure, but he lifted his hands and prepared to use Protection.

The fireball leapt from the boss’s hand and scorched across the room. Rick held his breath, trying to see which way it was going, and he almost failed to realize it was headed straight for him.