Purple so deep it was nearly black swirled up from the goblin bodies, sending the Witch’s poison into the air. I stayed back as the goblins disappeared, too far away for the lingering poison to deal any real damage.
[1/50 enemies remaining]
[Defeat the boss to complete your training!]
The bronze door separating the boss from the rest of the dungeon loomed ahead, towering across from me at the end of a rickety wooden bridge swinging above a deep abyss. I climbed down a set of stairs, blood spilling from where a goblin’s claw had torn through my arm, leaving a trail behind me.
It was the only wound I’d gotten.
[Hayden: 75/100 hp]
I trekkeddown the arduous stone path, carefully avoiding the gaping chasm spanning across either side. The path before me narrowed until it reached a point where if I stretched my arms, they’d go past solid ground. I moved slowly, preparing to teleport back to safety if need be.
The door grew larger as I drew closer, spanning an incredible height that seemed to stretch as tall as a skyscraper. The gears and locks on the door shifted as I approached, groaning as they prepped the door for opening.
I download a potion and an ether, sending both of my stats back up to full.
[49/50 Enemies defeated. Challenge the boss?]
“Yes.”
The system droned on, throwing up text box after text box, explaining the concept behind bosses and informing me that in the future I’d have to work with others to solve the dungeons. I tapped through the boxes almost as rapidly as it threw them up, pausing only for a moment to ensure there was no new information provided.
There wasn’t. It was the standard information provided in the first dungeon of the game.
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The doors shook and then exploded outward. At first, the room beyond them only appeared to be pitch black. As the doors groaned to a stop, the torches lit up one by one in a clockwise movement, setting the circular chamber alight. A dark shape slithered around the room, periodically blocking the light.
I recast the spells to hide myself and switched to Gunslinger. The Basilisks
in Zenith Online weren’t quite as deadly as legends would make them out to be. They were also a bit of a unique case, with special conditions required to be met before the beast could be defeated. Or, once you ‘killed’ both of the eyes, you’d win the fight. Each hit you took from the Basilisk also had the potential to inflict the status ailment ‘stone’ on you, rendering you unable to move until it wore off.
Their special ability and hunting grounds, both to do with ‘ground,’ were what belayed its attribute. Unfortunately, however, it was immune to the spell gust while it was touching the earth, though there were many workarounds for it. The easiest was similar to the trick I’d used to defeat the Dark Ravens.
The flames flared as I entered the boss room, doors slamming shut with a loud ‘clang’ behind me. The sound and sudden brightness stirred the snake into a frenzy. It thrashed about, sending its tail toward my face. I leaned back, watching as it missed by centimeters.
Slitted yellow eyes glowed, and its tongue slipped out to taste the air. The basilisk didn’t slow down for even a second, and, for what felt like forever, I panicked as I narrowly avoided several more hits. Eventually, the pattern became clear to me, and I could still my racing heart.
I aimed the flame directly across from me, waiting for the signal. The tail whipped back, and the snake coiled, pulling its head back into the line of fire. My finger twitched, and the shot ween off, slamming directly into the Basalisk’s eyes.
The room shook as the Basilisk flailed and wailed in pain. IItsremaining giant yellow eye, nearly the size of me, zipped about before focusing on my position. I was noticed. Its tongue reached out to taste the air, and the head moved back slightly.
I recognized the position and dove to the side just in time. The massive scaled head flew past me, slamming with a giant crash into the wall where I had been. I didn’t bother getting up.
“Toss.”
As my hands were already pressed up against the cold stone floor, there was no delay in the casting of the spell. The floor rumbled, hurling the Basilisk into the air. “Gust.”
Now that the Basilisk wasn’t touching the floor, the immunity that had protected it from the wind spell wore off, and a gale of wind rushed forward from my hands, smacking the Basilisk back into the wall, and cutting its remaining health points in half.
It recovered quickly, withdrawing into the shadows between the torches, its black scales blending nicely into the shadows. Nicely, but not completely. I crouched back down to the floor and waited. If I used toss again too soon, there was the chance the Basilisk could lunge at me, leaving the area of attack and injuring me while I was under the system's control, helpless to save myself.
Something shifted in front of the fire, and I tumbled toward the center of the room, spinning to keep an eye on the dark shape whirling around me as it whipped its tail into the wall, knocking down stone. Suddenly, it froze, pulling its head back. Light on my feet, I waited. As soon as the head so much as twitched back forward, the balls of my feet were pressing against the ground, hurling me away from the danger.
Once again, the snake slammed face-first into the wall, sending the creature into a daze as. I used the moment to toss it into the air and throw gust to force it back into the wall. Time froze.
[50/50 Enemies defeated! You’ve passed every state of the tutorial! You are now prepared to go off on your own adventures!]
The dungeon and the screen turned to static and faded to black.