Arcane words calling my wyvern sting spell forth cascaded from my lips as my hands completed the needed gestures to bring the spell to life. Seeing the dwarven leader charging my minion, the undead healer brought back from death courtesy of my specialized undeath spell, I only had seconds to react. My damage over time spell targeting the regenerating enemy priest was nearly completed, so I decided to risk uttering the last few syllables before attempting to intervene with the boss. It was equally important to get some damage rolling against the enemy healer if Tallos and Lowki were going to be able to defeat the powerful spell caster.
The battlelord was not overly quick as he made an approximation of a sprint towards our healer. Buram was bearing an incredibly heavy maul after all, as well as a complete set of plate armor minus a helmet, so was nowhere near as quick as any member of my party. Even as I completed my spell, I stepped to the side to interpose myself between the raging dwarf and his target. The moment the last syllable left my lips, I summoned Frostrend into my hands and moved towards the boss.
My minion, while powerful in his own right, stood no chance against the charging enemy. Not only was the rushing dwarf a boss, he was also an elite which magnified his threat. I needed to buy time for Ripley to reengage. With a plan already firmly rooted in my mind, I closed the already shrinking distance between myself and the battlelord. He lived up to his class name, a Stonehammer Battlelord. His weapon could topple mountains, given enough time. In the boss’s hands, the weapon looked to weigh no more than my axe did.
Buram Barrelchest saw my intention clearly as I closed off his angle towards our party’s healer. Seeming not to be bothered by my move, the boss stared gleefully at my lithe half-elven form. Compared to his wide and stocky body, my slender body looked entirely incapable of hindering his war maul in the slightest. He must have figured a single blow from the impressive weapon would put me down for good, regardless of whether I was a Hunter or not, thus allowing him to proceed against our healer afterward. I couldn’t argue with his assessment, even with my empowered aegis, there was no way I could allow his attack to strike me. If the worst happened, I would still be blown away by such an impact.
As the few remaining feet disappeared between us, Buram cocked his arm back for a mighty horizontal swing, aiming right for my midsection. There would be little room to dodge or evade the attack. Or, so it seemed. While it would be useless to dodge left or right, even backward, there was precious room beneath the weapon. Ducking at the last moment, I leaped into a forward roll.
Hoping against hope the weapon wouldn’t connect, I felt a mix of elation and primal terror as a rush of air passed over my tightly balled body. The blow hadn’t connected!
Springing to my feet in an instant, I found myself facing Buram’s exposed back as he tugged mightily to halt his weapon’s momentum. He was no fool. The battle-hardened commander knew where I was, so calling upon his staggering strength once more, Buram reversed his attack to bring it back around towards me. With the amount of mass the weapon possessed, it was still a struggle for the determined dwarf.
Not hesitating for a moment, I yelled out an arcane word calling forth my roaring sweep skill which sent Frostrend slashing across the boss’s flank. Hoping the stunning effect would affect an elite boss, my weapon blurred with incredible speed. If the stun would not take effect, I would be in a vulnerable position as the oversized maul careened towards me.
Frostrend crashed into the dwarf’s armor chest with staggering force, the wave of magical energy flowing in the attack's wake to slam powerfully through his protective armor. Knowing the stun could fail to grab hold of the boss’s corded muscles, I was already springing backward.
My backward tumble was more panic-driven than graceful, as I rolled away, the carpeting only slightly reducing the impact on cold stone. Nonetheless, the move carried me well outside the boss’s potential follow-up attack. As I reoriented on the dwarf, I saw my move would have been unnecessary. The mighty dwarf was locked rigid, his weapon still in peculiarly still, as if the boss had been turned to stone.
Ripley, having regained her feet, came back in on the dwarf’s opposite side, her sword unhindered as it attempted to cut deeply into the boss’s thick neck. Ruined chain links shot outwards at the impact sight, signaling his undershirt armor was not magically enchanted. At least, not with durability strong enough to weather the carving weapon. Blood gushed out, but not in the arterial spray I had been hoping for. Ripley’s attack had hurt the boss but was far from what was needed to finish the stocky dwarf off. Still, my stun had rooted firmly within Buram’s body, and our enemy no effort to defend himself as Ripley layered on several additional savage attacks.
In the quick second it took for the stun to wear off, Ripley used the opportunity to land several devastating wounds. She also positioned herself in between the fuming boss and his desired target behind her.
With the immediate threat to our healer ended, at least for the moment, I shot a quick look toward the wizard hoping my fear spell was still working. It was. Reorienting on the enemy priest, who had two DoTs ticking away at his health, I started up a new spell casting as I created a little distance between me and the boss battle behind me.
Combined with Tallos’ lightning-fast attacks from his new bow and Lowki’s harassing claws and poisoned barbs, the dwarven priest was finally showing damage. His healing spells, cast in between offensive swings of his enchanted mace, were no longer mitigating everything that was being done to him. My two DoTs had broken the stalemate. Free to narrow my focus solely on the dwarven priest, it was time to layer on even more of my damaging spells.
“This is where the fun begins…” I said with a smile tugging at the corner of my lips.
Spell after spell flew from my lips in rapid succession. My fingers looked akin to a director overseeing an orchestra. Each new spell was enhanced by both my dual and quick casting skills to maximize my damage potential. Three, four, then five spells were all ticking away massive chunks of the priest’s health. A few spells were resisted, but I didn’t let it bother me. I simply recast them as soon as the spell was off cool down. In short order, every single DoT at my disposal was upon the now haggard-looking dwarf.
Large impact tremors rang out behind me, no doubt from the boss attempting to turn Ripley into bone dust with his massive war maul. Her intact health pool in the corner of my vision gave me confidence she was managing the overpowering fighter. With her skill and footwork, I could only imagine how close some of those powerful attacks must have been, I was able to maintain my focus on Marharen. As I had been worried for our own healer, if we could drop the enemy’s then we stood a good chance of walking away from this battle in victory.
Marharen Hillstone, a priest in the service of a deity named Gias, understood he was in trouble. His spells, as powerful in restorative magic as they were, could not keep up with the ever-increasing pace of three foes focusing all of their efforts on him. Worse, whenever the special effect of synaptic toxin triggered, the priest’s mind was shocked and lost the necessary focus to complete whatever spell he had been in the process of casting. Further, the spell’s knowledge that had been so innately grounded in his mind seconds earlier disappeared as if it had evaporated. Leaving nothing behind for long seconds.
Realizing his plight, Marharen attempted to move closer to his commander, hoping his ally would come to his aid. Back peddling, the priest tried to cast yet another spell, only for a spike of pain from synaptic toxin to temporarily steal away another of his most powerful healing spells. Cursing in the dwarven tongue, the priest grew desperate. His lifeline was withering and decaying, he could feel it being torn from his body in great agonizing bursts.
Lowki’s lightning-fast attacks were becoming difficult to dodge. Even still, the panicked dwarf risked turning his head with plans to shout for aid from his battlelord. In that precious moment of inattention, against the huge hunting panther, the move cost him dearly. He was blown off his feet as several hundred pounds of feline horror slammed into his side.
Lowki had been biding his time, waiting for an opportune moment to pounce. His foe was skilled in combat and had armor capable of withstanding even his racking claws and barbed quills. The moment the dwarf turned his head, Lowki used every ounce of his considerable strength to launch himself through his enemy's chest. The dwarven cleric was hefty in his own right, his center of gravity far lower to the ground courtesy of his short stature. Still, it couldn’t compete with the sheer ferocity and magnitude of a quarter-ton panther crashing into him.
The priest’s shout of surprise from the unanticipated impact was so startling it threatened to steal attention from every other combatant in the spacious room. The pair tumbled across the carpeted room, all racking claws and flailing limbs. The priest attempted to use the tumbling momentum to throw off his attack, all the while Lowki latched on as his maw snaked forward looking for his target’s most venerable flesh. The priest’s shrill cry was snuffed out when Lowki’s jaw found what he was looking for.
His eye bulging in fright, the priest attempted to cast a powerful instant defensive spell as teeth clamped down on his neck. Panic exploded with the realization he couldn’t speak the words necessary to enact the instant cast spell. Finding himself equally unable to draw breath, his eyes widened even further. The full weight of his position smothered his psyche like a tsunami wave crashing into a fragile homestead.
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Unable to speak, scream, or cry for help, the priest vainly swung his fists against the sides of the cat’s dark fur. Having lost his mace in the tumble, his fingers could do little to persuade his foe to release his crushing grip. Blackness began blotting the edges of his vision as Marharen's struggles weakened. Lowki, knowing his foe would soon perish, closed his eyes against clawing dwarven fingers. Nothing would cause him to relinquish his death grip.
With a final shudder, Marharen’s body went slack, all strength disappearing as the last of his life was spent. Blackness descended as the dwarf’s mind fell into fathomless darkness. Ensuring the vile dwarf would never rise again, Lowki violently twisted his neck muscles, eliciting a loud crack of a snapped spine. Finally, those predator jaws let go as the priest’s body thudded against plush carpeting.
Turning my attention back to Ripley and the dwarven boss for a moment, I quickly deduced that neither had been able to gain the upper hand against their foe, though Ripley bore more than one sign of cracked or splintered bone. Taking a few more seconds, I scanned the room for the enemy wizard. If he got free of my fear spell, he could start throwing meteors at us for all I knew. There! In the far corner of the room, the spell-slinging dwarf was crawling backward as fast as he could to create distance between himself and his phantom attackers.
Believing Ripley and our undead cleric could continue their objective of stalling the boss long enough for us to take out the other dwarves, I shouted for Tallos and Lowki to help me finish off the frightened mage. Lowki sighted the dwarf, crouched low, and then sprung away his mouth agape, looking for another victim. Tallos lined a shot and started firing. As I wound through another DoT against the dwarf, I knew his fear shattered in only moments under our combined assault. Hopefully, he had little tricks up his sleeve to prevent a fate his divinely gifted friend had suffered.
Then, it went all to shit.
His battle with Ripley moving every which way, around and towards each other, Buram’s eye caught the sight of his priestly friend as he lay awkwardly on the floor, his head twisted at an inhuman angle. How the boss screamed in fury at the sight! With speed that may have rivaled my roaring sweep special attack, Buram’s gigantic war maul whistled in the air as it hammered toward Ripley. Her shield was no match for the raw strength his attack carried with it. Her arm crumpled under the impact and she was sent flying away once more. With the clattering of bone, Ripley slammed against the room’s rocky wall, crumpling into a lifeless mess of crushed and broken bones. The incredible damage from the war maul, combined with impacting the wall, was enough to take Ripley out of the fight, her health pool finally emptying completely.
What I took as a stalemate was, in actuality, far from it. I had failed to notice the large chunks of health tearing away from her health bar to only spike back upwards as restorative magic from our healer attempted to repair it. Our priest was able to mitigate much of the damage inflicted against Ripley’s empowered skeletal body but was far from healing all of it. When I turned my attention to the frightened wizard, I failed to notice Ripley’s health had been below fifty percent, and, with his likely empowered special attack, the boss had finally inflicted enough damage to demolish Ripley’s skeletal body.
Turning to the sound of snapping bones, I found myself out of position as the boss turned his fury once more to the undead priest who had been so vexing him. Boldly striding forward, his war maul began another deadly swing, aimed at returning death to the undead minion.
Seeing the plight as it was unfolding, I raised my hand, calling my flintlock pistol into my grip. As if watching everything unfold in front of me in slow motion, I pulled the trigger as the war maul crashed towards the vulnerable dwarf. Though the impact of the bullet certainly stung as it pierced the back of the boss’s plate armor, it did little in the way of hindering his shattering swing.
It looked on in horror as our healer exploded like a bursting watermelon, chunks sent flying away in a gory mush. One moment he was standing there, his stubby fingers twinning through yet another healing or buff spell, and the next he was an unrecognizable mound of flesh, blood, and viscera splattering against the lush carpeting.
Tallos oriented on the dangerous foe, who was now far too close for comfort and completely unobstructed by friendly allies. Still, he did not hesitate as he sighted an arrow at the elite boss. He recognized he was in a vulnerable position, likely about to face the same devastation that just took out two of his party members, but he had little he could do about it.
I was several feet away and behind the dwarf, my penetrating shot nowhere near strong enough to steal back the boss’s attention. It was clear the sight of a willowy ranger standing alone was too much for the battlelord to ignore. With a battle cry, the dwarf screamed at Tallos with as much hate and rage as his blocky frame could muster. In seconds, he intended on painting more of the carpet and unyielding stone with elven blood.
Hoping Tallos would be able to use his ample agility to evade the soon-to-arrive mountainous attacks, I realized how important it was at that moment for me to grab the boss’s attention away from my friend. Casting as quickly as I could manage, the words to my chained lightning spell sounded in the room’s confines. I didn’t care or consider for a second if the chaining effects of the spell could lash out against the feared wizard. Nothing mattered but saving Tallos’ life. Perhaps, if I could stun the boss with the tremendous bolt of electricity, I could buy the ranger the time he needed to break away. Tallos and I both realized at the same moment that he had unknowingly cornered himself and had little room to work against the enraged battlelord.
The same as I had done earlier, Tallos rolled underneath the battlelord’s swinging maul and thankfully to similar results. I doubted the spiteful dwarf would fall it again though, as the words to my spell thundered from my lips. The spell finished, sending a bolt of dazzling electricity crashing away in a zigzagging arch to slam heavily into the back of the armored warrior. The bolt did not leap to a second target, the wizard outside the spell’s chaining effect. Still, a large chunk of the boss’s health was zapped away in an instant as the bolt bore through his body.
Buram’s muscles locked rigid for a moment and it looked for a moment like he was about to lose hold of his mighty weapon, but the boss was able to maintain his grip. The short-lived stun allowed Tallos to move away towards the center of the room, a good dozen feet from where I stood. As the boss turned to face the pair of us, I was already deep into another powerful casting. Thinking the boss would start another charge, I hoped to get one, perhaps two, spells before he got near.
Silver dwarven eyes promised death as the boss lowered his head. Tallos, all the while, fired a nonstop string of arrows at the armored figure. Sadly, Buram’s plate armor was doing a magnificent job of weathering the fierce barrage, doing a far better job than the former priest’s magical protections had earlier.
Boil blood, and wyvern sting both ravaged Buram’s body as he boldly stepped forward. As the furious battlelord clamored forward, a crazy idea formed in my mind. My decision made, I started up a spell with a slightly longer cast time than the normal one second that my DoTs had. This would all come down to precise timing.
Knowing the boss would not make another mistake of aiming his attack too high, I bent forward a little as if I intended to jump under the titanic swing once more. Arcane words were still rushing past my lips as I chanted when the magnificent weapon came arcing toward me.
My prediction proved true, the swing coming in lower than before, as I put all my considerable strength and agility into leaping over the incoming attack. The boss saw my intent too late and attempted to correct my change in direction. Yet, the momentous attack that had so brutally stolen Ripley and my undead cleric’s life, could not be easily redirected. The attack passed harmlessly beneath my tucked legs, as my leap propelled behind the dwarf. Never taking my eyes off the deadly foe, I chanted the final syllable of my spell mid-air as a bright bead of fire blossomed in my hands. A pea of fire sped away from my outstretched palms.
In a blinding explosion of heat, fire, and light, my fireball detonated against the back of the dwarf’s head. The potent detonation rocked the dwarf forward, slamming his head against the carpeted floor. The plush material helped only marginally against the blow as the boss’s wits were momentarily stolen from face-planting. I was no more fortunate than the dwarf, however, being far too close for such an attack. It seemed like a good idea in the split second it had formed.
The shockwave and burning conflagration sent me hurtling away, causing a line of fire and smoke to trail my uncoordinated flight. I crashed heavily more than a dozen feet away, though had enough wits to shield my head with my hands. My aegis had soaked up every drop of damage from the ruinous blast, taking a significant chunk of my mana along with it. Still, the fine magical barrier did little and was next to useless at dispelling the tremendous force imparted into my body.
Damn, that hurt! I thought to myself as I regained my feet. The boss was only on his hands and knees at that point, having come out worse from our brief tango with hellfire. By the time he reached his feet entirely and turned around, another pair of DoTs, with a third on the way, crashed into his body. A half dozen types of energy ravaged the boss from the inside out, though his bearded face hardly showed the pain he must have been experiencing.
Tallos continued taking shots at the protected warrior with several arrow shafts finally protruding between the small gaps between the boss’s considerable armor. Tallos was two dozen feet away, but for a moment it seemed hardly enough. Buram turned his head to sneer at the agile elf causing a spike of alarm to well in my chest. The boss was not looking at me!
My mind screamed that something incredibly bad was about to happen, and neither I nor Tallos was going to like it. The boss stalked forward his gigantic weapon held loosely in his brawny hands, as something in his body language hinted at a devious plot forming behind his hate-filled eyes.
An arrow plinked off the boss’s impressive armor, eliciting a wide smile showing from behind the dwarf’s dark beard. He spoke a single word, causing arcane energy to thrum throughout the room, catching our complete attention. I had no idea what was about to happen, so I summoned my axe to my hand with the intent of throwing it to disrupt whatever special ability the boss just triggered.
Buram beat me to it.
In an instant, the muscles in his brawny arms budged to twice their size, making him look like some gross caricature of his former self. The boss twirled the weapon as if it was lighter than a feather even though it must have weighed several hundred pounds. With a quick thrust, Buram hurled the monstrosity of a weapon. Not at me, but in Tallos’ direction! My eyes widened in terror. There was nothing I could hope to stop its disastrous flight.
As if watching in slow motion, I tracked the weapon as it approached the fragile archer who was even then trying to get out of its way. Nothing we could bring to bear had any possible hope of withstanding such a savage and overpowering attack, certainly not a willowy ranger who probably weighed less than a quarter of what the war maul did.
Someone screamed, though I couldn’t tell if it was me, or Tallos. Perhaps it had been both of us as an avalanche bore towards the meek-looking archer.