We all spun around at the sound of the gate collapsing behind us. Jayren immediately dashed forward, positioning himself directly between it and Aurora, who was in the back and closest to it when it fell. It was a good move and showed he really did know how to properly play a tank, but it proved unnecessary this time. Nothing was coming through the gate, and we were free to move on at our leisure.
We had all levelled up during the horde battle, so we took this time to catch our breaths and spend our new stat points. In SWO the only change with most levels was the increase to stat points. New abilities were only unlocked at levels 10, 15, 20 and so on, where the player would be offered a list of abilities they could learn and could choose one. Having just hit level 6, we still had a ways before we would be gaining any new abilities that way.
Having spent our points, we continued pushing through the dungeon. As if anticipating our increased stats, the groups of enemies also grew. The number of goblins in each group was larger on average, and occasionally we had to fight two hobgoblins at once. Initially we found it challenging, but as we were already accustomed to dealing with one, we were able to quickly adapt and fight off two when we needed to.
Additionally, we began encountering a new enemy, wolf riders. It seems the goblins had tamed some wolves, and would ride them into battle against us. The wolf riders had a troubling tendency to ignore the tank and attack the back lines. The first encounter with them I was forced into melee with one before Celeste was able to catch up with her charge to help.
After that, we realized that the wolves had very low willpower, and thus were very vulnerable to my mental magic. Targeting the wolf meant that the riders were still hostile to us, but since they were always the closest thing to the frenzied wolves they were also the first thing they tried to attack, leading to a rather funny turn of events. A frenzied wolf couldn’t actually reach the goblin on it’s back, so it would first try to throw them off like a bizarre rodeo. If the goblin fell, the wolf would immediately attack them, usually not even giving them a chance to get up. A few of the goblins managed to hold on, though. This would cause the wolf to start attempting more desperate methods. Sometimes they would start rolling around, sandwiching the goblin between themselves and the stone flooring. Others would throw themselves into a wall to knock the goblin loose.
Even better than that, the wolves started in the back and charged forward. Thus after finishing their riders off, the next closest targets were usually the archers. Because of that as long as I hit them with the frenzy right away, we could focus all of our attention on the melee enemies while the backline wiped itself out.
Aside from the new enemy type, our trip through the second half of the dungeon was relatively uneventful and before we knew it we had reached another large, ornate door.
“Well, if that doesn’t scream boss battle, I’ll have to retire from gaming entirely.” I said, looking up at the door.
Kiera nodded. “Agreed, we should rest here before we march in there. I’m getting a bit hungry, too.”
We decided to take time for another round of rotating log outs while the others ate and prepared for the fight ahead. It was decided this time around Celeste would be feeding me, as I had to use up extra satiety to fly in order to rescue her during the horde. At least that was the excuse given. I truth, I think Aurora was still feeling the embarrassment from last time, and Kiera was finding any excuse to avoid doing it herself.
Returning to the group with the blushing Celeste, we finished our preparations and braced for the difficult fight to come. Jayren pushed open the door, and we cautiously made our way into a large audience hall. At the far side of the room on a throne made up of various bones sat a large goblin with a war axe and shield leaning against the side of the throne. At his side stood another goblin holding a wooden staff with a deer skull affixed to the top.
“As one would expect, a chief. And a shaman by the looks of it. What do you think, focus the shaman first?” I asked, staring at the enemies in front of us.
“Yeah, we can withstand melee a lot better than magic.” Kiera responded. “Jayren, think you can keep the chief busy while the rest of us focus on the shaman?”
“I should be able to keep him busy for a while, as long as Aurora can keep my health up. I might need a hand though, so let’s have Richter help me with him. The rest of you hit the shaman fast. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold up.”
As if waiting for us to solidify our strategy, the chief rose from his throne and picked up the axe and shield before shouting at us.
“SHINTA! MEK NAHALRUK!”
I grinned. “Sorry, my goblin’s a bit rusty. Could you speak common? Or demon, I should know that one too. Otherwise, I’m just going to assume you’re just surrendering to our clearly superior strength.”
I’m not sure if the goblin understood me or it just didn’t like that someone talked back, but either way it was angry now. As it raised its weapon and dashed forward, Jayren lept out to meet the attack and Richter slipped to the side to try to get behind it.
“For future reference, could you not piss off the bosses right before the fight?”
“Sorry, old habit.”
While Kiera was shaking her head at my response, Celeste started her charge and ran straight for the shaman. I flapped my wings and took to the sky to find a position to attack with my spells and whip while Kiera began moving forward to put herself in range before launching a lightning spell at it. Only Aurora remained back by the entrance in order to keep both groups in range of her healing.
Seeing me in the air, the shaman turned its staff toward me and a blast of fire came hurtling through the air toward me. Or at least that was its intent. Luckily for me, Celeste reached it at swung her shield at it, knocking it back and causing its aim to go wide. However it didn’t take long to recover, and it retaliated by launching a spike of ice into Celeste’s shoulder.
As I dropped to the ground behind the shaman, a bolt of lightning came flashing in and slammed into the it’s chest. It aimed the skull topped staff toward the Kiera and flames started to gather around the skull. Noticing that this looked like an even bigger spell than the small fireball that came at me earlier, I cast Migraine causing the shaman to flinch and interrupting the spell casting. As the flames that had gathered dissipated a spear was thrust into it from the side.
“Stop ignoring me!” Celeste shouted, quickly jabbing at the shaman a few more times. It seemed to work, as it turned back to her and raised it’s hand to try to cast at her again. I used my whips ability to cause fire damage, and lashed it at the shaman’s outstretched hand to prevent it from casting.
Like this, the three of us were able to shut down most of the shaman’s spells and were quickly whittling down its health, when the Chief stopped swinging at Jayren for a moment and shouted something before resuming the onslaught on Jayren’s shield.
“SHORRALK! KRAL NAR TEV!”
In response to the call, there was the sound of heavy foot falls from the passage we had come in from, and a hobgoblin burst into the room and dashed at the nearest enemy to it, Aurora.
“Shit, reinforcements. Aurora, look out!”
Kiera had been the first to notice the intruder. Unfortunately, it still took half our party to handle a hobgoblin, and right now we couldn’t spare that.
“Leave the hobgoblin to me, keep on the bosses.”
An idea had occurred to me earlier, but I hadn’t really had a chance to try it yet. This might prove to be the opportunity I was waiting for. Pushing myself forward with my wings, I landed directly between the hobgoblin and the retreating Aurora.
“Hey big guy! Why don’t you play with me instead?”
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The hobgoblin was perfectly fine with switching to a new target that wasn’t going to run away, and turned to face me as it continued to charge. I returned the stare and grinned, before activating my racial abilities, Seduce and Enthrall.
As I had hoped, a succubus’ racial mind control was considerably more powerful than the spells, and the hobgoblin stopped it’s charge and stood at attention, ready to receive orders. Unlike with the frenzy spell, it was not able to shrug off my enthrallment. I had suspected that might be the case because they aren’t counted as a spell, but an effect caused by an ability instead.
I let out a small sigh in relief. I had made a backup plan if this hadn’t work, but that basically consisted of using my claws to attack while dodging with my wings and preventing attacks with Migraine, much like I had done with the horde. Unlike that time, I would probably have needed to dodge every blow from the hobgoblin. I can take a few attacks from regular goblins, but a hobgoblin would do a lot of damage to me with a single hit, and the impact would probably leave me vulnerable to further attacks as well.
Luckily, that didn’t happen and instead we had a temporary seventh party member. Giving the order to attack the Shaman, I also flew back to resume my assault.
Unfortunately for us, the hobgoblin wasn’t the smartest being in the room, and the entirety of its understanding of the word “cooperation” was don’t hit us, only hit them. We were more or less forced to position and time our attacks around whatever he was doing, because he sure wasn’t going to take us into consideration. On the upside, he dealt a lot of damage and drew the attention of the shaman, so most of it’s attacks were now aimed at the thrall. Overall, I felt like I should thank the chief for calling a useful assistant for us.
“Huh, that worked well.”
“As well it better have. Hopefully he doesn’t call more, as it cost me half my energy and I can only have one at a time.”
I flicked my flaming whip across the shaman’s back as it hit our new hobgoblin with a spike of ice. The damage was rapidly building up, and it wouldn’t last much longer.
It was at this point, the shaman did something new. Up till now, it had fought by launching relatively simple spells that didn’t require much time to cast in rapid succession, either with it’s empty hand or the staff. But now, with it’s health critical, it sneered at us, then raised the staff with both hands and snapped it in half.
With the breaking of the staff, magical energies burst out and began swirling around the shaman, preventing our attacks from reaching it. At the same time, the goblin began what we could only assume was a chant for a huge spell. It raised it’s hands in the air as they became engulfed with a magical flame that continued to grow as it chanted.
“That looks bad! Lilith, Celeste!” Kiera yelled from behind me.
“On it! Celeste, run away as fast as you can!” If our suspicions were right, I didn’t have time to explain.
Celeste looked a bit confused, but luckily did as she was told and used her charge skill to run toward Aurora. I threw myself back with my wings as well, while ordering my thrall to get away. Unfortunately, not only was he not too bright but also slow. Also, he really preferred fighting to retreat, so he took an extra swing at the shaman before falling back.
Shortly afterward, the shaman proved Kiera and I correct. With his chant complete, he lowered his hands to chest height before clapping them together. The sound of the clap was immediately drowned out by the sound of a huge explosion centered on the location where the shaman had just been. Not only that, the magic that had been surrounding him also burst forth in a wave of destruction around him. When it was done, nothing but a crater remained where he had been standing moments earlier.
“Self destruction huh. That’s quite a nasty trick.”
A quick check told me Kiera and Celeste had managed to get away. Celeste had taken some damage from the wave of magic, but Aurora was already restoring her damage. Kiera had already turned her target toward the chieftain.
Unfortunately, the hobgoblin didn’t get away fast enough, and got killed in the magical explosion. His sacrifice would be remembered, however. For at least 30 seconds.
Seeing the shaman die, the chieftain glared at us and let out a guttural yell. Unlike earlier, this one wasn’t instructions or even words, but seemed to be a cry of pure rage. As he yelled, his muscles seemed to bulge out and his eyes turned a deep red.
“This looks bad. Jayren, brace yourself and make sure to keep his attention. Aurora, be ready to heal Jayren more often. It looks like he just went berserk, so he’s probably going to be doing a lot more damage now.”
As she gave instructions, she and I began moving into range to begin attacking. Celeste stayed behind for now in order to regenerate her energy and use her charge attack when she could.
As we had expected, the chieftain’s attacks became faster and much more powerful, chipping away at Jayren’s health even with his large shield. Aurora was able to keep him alive for now, but her mana would run out before too long if we didn’t finish him. Even worse, his health had begun to slowly regenerate, so if we stopped attacking he would begin to recover. We had to constantly rain attacks on him and bring him down quickly.
For my role, it mostly became stalling heavy attacks with Migraine when I saw him winding up for them. After Celeste charged back into the fray, there weren’t many openings for me to attack with my whip between Jayren, Celeste, and Richter in melee range. Most of the openings between them would be taken by Kiera’s lightning, so I needed to stay back and out of the way. I also took this opportunity to toss out the occasional Inspire to help.
Before long, we managed to chisel down the chieftain’s health to about 10 percent. Having seen the shaman self destruct suddenly when his health went low, we were watching the chieftain for any unexpected move, but he still managed to catch us by surprise with a sudden burst of speed. With the sudden increase, he parried Celeste’s spear with his axe then countered with a strong blow that dropped her health dangerously and sent her flying. At the same time, his other arm blocked Richter’s daggers, and he dealt a quick slam with his shield and sent Richter sprawling as well. Finally, he brought the shield to the front and deflected a blow from Jayren, then began to focus his attacks on Jayren causing considerable damage.
With Richter and Celeste out of the fight temporarily, the chieftain’s health regeneration began to overwhelm the damage output from myself, Jayren, and Kiera. Even worse, with the continuous onslaught on Jayren, Aurora couldn’t stop healing him long enough to restore the other two and bring them back into the fight.
Trying to thinking of a way to recover this situation, my mind returned to the wolves earlier.
“This is bad. Kiera, I have an idea, but do you have a spell that can do a large amount of damage and finish this?”
“I did get one when my lightning magic skill hit level 3 earlier, but it has such a long chant it’s not really useable. I doubt he’ll just ignore me for long if I start it, and by the time I can finish it his health will regen too much. I’m pretty low on mana, as well.”
I pulled two mana potions out of my inventory and tossed one to Kiera before downing the other myself.
“Drink that and start the chant. I’ll get his attention and take care of the health regen. Just making sure, that spell isn’t an AoE, right?”
“Nope, one target. Why?”
“Because if it weren’t, I probably wouldn’t be coming out of this alive. Start chanting.”
“Wait, what are you planning on doing!”
Ignoring Kiera, I launched myself into the air above and behind the chieftain. She realized there wouldn’t be an answer, and started her chant.
“From the clouds to the earth, I call down power...”
I holstered my whip and activated my claws again, then called out “Aurora, sorry, but you may need to keep me alive for a bit too.”
“With a great blow, strike down my foes…”
Seeing an opening, I folded in my wings and dropped onto the goblins back. I wrapped my legs around its waist and my arms around its shoulders digging my claws in to help hold me in place.
I grinned evilly, and with a sing-song voice muttered in the chieftain’s ear. “Got you.”
Then I activated Life Drain.
“A great roar shall be heard, and all shall see the might...”
The chieftain was clearly very unhappy to have a sudden, life sucking passenger. It began thrashing about, attempting to remove me from it’s back, but even as it struggled, it’s movements became noticeably dulled from before. It seemed that the side effects from my draining still worked on monsters. I didn’t want to think about it, but it was coming in handy now.
“Bring forth the vengeance of the heavens. Smite my enemies…”
The Chieftain turned and dashed straight toward the wall, turning at the last minute and slamming me into the wall, instantly dropping my health dangerously low. I would probably have been thrown off if my claws weren’t anchoring me down.
“Geh! That hurt!” No sooner did I get the words out than Aurora’s heal spell hit me recovering the damage.
“Stop running away from me!” Jayren roared. In it’s desperation to remove me, the chieftain had forgotten his other opponent. Jayren positioned himself between us to prevent that move from happening again, and the wall and began slashing out with his sword rapidly taking care not to hit me in the process. Luckily, we didn’t have to keep this up for too long before Kiera finished her chant.
“With a blinding flash, destroy everything!
With the shout of the final keyword for the spell, a huge dark cloud suddenly gathered at the ceiling of the room with a low rumbling. Suddenly, from that cloud burst an enormous bolt of lightning, which unerringly arced into the chieftains forehead. I wasn’t able to see the actual impact because I was blinded by the sudden flash right in front of me, but I felt the muscular goblin beneath me start twitching, then collapse to the ground.