I looked around at the children and elderly gnolls, there were obviously former warriors in the bunch, too. They walked on stump legs or were missing arms and eyes. A few of them were brazen enough to carry weapons and stare menacingly at us. The crowd looked like it would close around us. They weren’t all helpless.

It was Jessica who turned to face a rather menacing-looking gnoll. His single hand held a serrated dirk, the other arm had no hand, but a claw had been embedded into the flesh there to replace his fingers. One eye was completely grey and a bit disfigured and one leg below the knee was gone, replaced by a stump of wood. It was clear he was a veteran warrior. “Just try it,” Jessica threatened.

Instead of being deterred, he started to walk a bit closer, and the crowd with him. Jessica had shown enough restraint, and then loosed her arrow. The ground beneath the gnoll exploded, and even in this situation she had shown mercy. It was clear he would attack when the situation provided him an opportunity, but Jessica had shot his wooden leg to bits and he could no longer stand, toppling to the side. An elderly gnoll helped drag him away and the crowd inched back a few steps. “Last warning,” she said while swinging around.

I was growing impatient now. Dozens of seconds passed and the boss hadn’t emerged from the hut. “Fighting the boss inside isn’t an option for us. We need to get him out.”

“I’ll take care of it!” Maria boasted before sending a fiery arrow towards the roof of the building. It landed with an explosion and the dry animal hide lit from the extreme heat, a few skulls exploded out of the clay where the arrow landed.

In just a few moments, the fire spread from the tarp to the supporting beams, even the clay interior was mixed with straw that lit up at the smallest crack. The structure was burning rapidly and a deep smoke billowed into the sky.

“Uh oh,” Maria said. I hadn’t thought about it in advance, probably none of us had really considered the consequence of starting a major fire, but we had created our own beacon of smoke. For now it wasn’t a problem, but it would turn into one soon enough. We were on a timer.

“It’s okay. Without the message from the hawk I don’t think they will suspect anything out of the ordinary for a while.” Lucas steadied my rising nerves. He was the calmest of all of us, and for good reason. He didn’t say so, but his passive Ruler was working at an insane capacity right now. While they weren’t actively attacking us, every onlooker was an enemy and therefore giving him stat bonuses.

“He’s coming,” Jessica warned everyone. Richard and Alan grouped at the front. Alan was so hyped he started to chomp at the gnolls that inched too close, it looked like he was going to randomly go berserk any moment.

“Don’t lose control.” I touched his shoulder. “Redeem yourself.” I knew already he was feeling disappointed in his previous display. Any sane person knew taking a dungeon boss one-on-one wasn’t something he should be shooting for, but I didn’t damper his enthusiasm.

The boss walked through the hut entrance and into the open air. His eyes scanned the gnolls around, and the fervor and admiration they showed in response to his gaze was honestly scary. “Retreat, this isn’t a place for all of you!” he yelled at them. “Don’t needlessly throw your lives away.” The second line could have been for us, too.

Our spectators immediately retreated a good thirty or forty feet. Some even went into their houses and ceased spectating, but most stayed within view. Lucas frowned, perhaps because of the losses from his passive, but perhaps too at level of the respect and control the gnoll boss had. He received the kind of fervor that was given to a good ruler, and not a tyrant. “Did he think we would take hostages?” Lucas muttered under his breath.

“You humans are a despicable bunch, so I never put it past you to do anything, including making cubs hostages.” The boss responded with amazing hearing. “I ordered them away because otherwise they would risk their lives in a helpless attack.” I suddenly had a bad feeling at his response. He had spoken with more moral authority than either of the princes.

The boss’s muscles became taut and his expression ferocious. It was zero to one-hundred in a second as he exploded forward towards us. Alan and Richard rushed to meet him, as did my undead soldiers. The two opposing sides moving for a head on collision.

I knew the inside of that hut was a massive disadvantage for us, but I had not considered how that was also true for the boss. He was large and wielded a heavy weapon; I never expected his agility to be so high.

Alan was the first to reach the boss, or it would be better to say the boss reached Alan first because of his charge. There was no deflection or stabbing or tanking of any kind happening, instead the boss’s massive right hand grabbed Alan from behind his shield, spun him with one swift motion to the right, sending Alan hurdling into Richard like a bowling ball and pin.

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The two collided with a metal thud and rolled ten feet together while the boss continued to spin in one motion. His now free second hand grasped the massive mallet he raised high during his spin and slammed it down with both hands. It hit the ground with a deep thud that I felt twenty feet away.

“Dodge!” I yelled at everyone. That was his earth magic, and the effect it would have was uncertain. Not many of us could dodge in time, but Anna and Thomas were the most immobile of the bunch and most susceptible to surprise attacks.

A second hadn’t even passed but my heart was in my throat. I was ready to rush to help anyone injured as my eyes scanned my party members in what felt like slow motion. Suddenly, a thunder like sound exploded from the earth as it sheered apart from his magic. A fissure appeared beneath Jessica’s feet that she couldn’t quite dodge on account of priming a shot a moment prior. Still, her reaction wasn’t bad.

As the fissure rose beneath her, she jumped at the same time and rode the momentum to its peak, launching twenty or thirty feet in the air. The jutting rock hadn’t impaled her, but the fall alone would be enough to break bones.

My skeletons were only now just halfway to the boss, but they provided a decent barrier to our party. I wasn’t worried about the boss coming for us in this brief moment. Alan and Richard were fumbling to their feet and would intercept him soon.

Knowing that, I immediately sent both skeleton generals rushing for Jessica as she fell. I wasn’t confident in any of us catching her, but their strength would manage it. Their physical prowess might not be as much as that of Alan or Richard, but their overall balance and agility was impressive. I was confident they could catch her without hurting her.

Jessica was in free fall for what felt like three or four seconds, a testament to just how high she had been flung. The two generals, one wielding a zweihander and the other a butcher’s cleaver, dropped their weapons and braced for impact. I could hear their bones rattle as she crashed down upon them. She rolled away and groaned, but was in one piece.

“Nice going spikey!” Maria suddenly yelled at my minions. Spikey eh… I kind of liked it.

The boss was clearly surprised at our quick reaction to his attack. No doubt he had imagined that Jessica would have been impaled from below and instantly killed. I could understand why he had focused his attack on her: Jessica’s Quagmire traps and accurate shooting posed a big threat to his mobility.

“Stay focused,” Lucas said to everyone. While it felt like a long time had passed since the start of the duel and Jessica landing, only a few seconds had expired. Richard and Alan managed to regain their balance, and instead of charging blindly, moved in side by side.

“Sorry everyone!” Alan yelled and then smacked his shield with his sword. “I won’t let you down again!” Richard’s shield started to glow white hot beside him. Even the holy power in his mace glowed brightly.

My undead encircles the boss and Spikey #1 and #2 ran to either side of him. We now had a proper setup in place. The boss was more contained, and we held the advantage. “Shall we try this again?” I asked everyone.

Every face was filled with a new intensity. Alan had learned this lesson multiple times already, and it seemed to have finally stuck in his brain—he was part of a two-man tanking team. This time, with Richard at his side, they crept in slowly. They created a constant pressure on the boss while Anna, Maria, and Jessica prepared to assault it from range.

My undead were also there in the periphery, ready to react with attack or defense when needed. Bosses always had a multitude of skills, and battles with them were never as easy as just hitting the boss until it ran out of HP: possible tactics and responses were at the forefront of my mind.

“Careful of the ground attack.” I warned everyone. After seeing it once, I was more confident we wouldn’t be caught unaware again. My summoned soldiers started to close in slowly as did Richard and Alan. We were slowly constricting the boss and the fight was going to erupt at any moment.

Thomas casted a HoT on both Alan and Richard, which seemed to be the right spell to start the encounter once again. This time there was proper support in place for Alan and Richard. Blizzard appeared above the boss followed by both Jessica and Maria’s frenzied arrow assault. Lucas blended in with my warriors from behind and repeatedly dashed in with flanking blows before retreating as quickly as he appeared.

With Lucas and my undead attacking from the back, Maria, Jessica, Anna and myself attacking from the front, and Richard and Alan acting as immovable objects, the boss lost its upper hand. There were too many attacks to deflect and defend. The healthy sheen on its brown coat dulled grey and red from the dust and blood. The wounds were only superficial in nature so far though.

The boss grew more flustered. His two gigantic hands grasped the mallet and slammed down at our tanks with as much force as he could muster. “Help me!” Alan yelled. Richard didn’t hesitate, and the two nearly connected at the hip to raise their shields. There came the sound of an explosion when blow of the mallet collided with the iron of the shields. Our tanks had managed to hold on, and gave not an inch to the strike.

Instead, they pushed back hard and sent the mallet lunging into the air and the boss fumbling several steps back, being truly overpowered for the first time. Lucas took a piece of flesh from the bosses’ thigh as it retreated, which infuriated it even more. The boss swung the mallet in a half circle trying to catch Lucas, but instead exploding three of my skeletal warriors in the process.

The boss started to growl from his gut. It was such a visceral thrumming that slowly built until it was all I could hear. By the time I realized it, my hair was standing and I had goosebumps. He started to look more feral by the second. His calm and intelligent-looking eyes grew belligerent, the whites slowly turning red. Even his hands, albeit large before, morphed into something bestial.

“Jessica…” I muttered, “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.” She said plainly. Her inspect ability wasn’t high enough level to discern anything other than that this was a boss. Its abilities were completely unknown to us, but I could tell the current boss was completely enraged.