Maya immediately solidified her new spell into an ability, then grabbed another handful of magic to try again. She felt slow, uncertain; she knew she could do better. She had enough for one more try, there was some still clinging to the backs of her hands and the feathers of her arms, she'd been moving quickly and without precision.

Maya dropped flat to avoid a high beam of light, rolled aside and jumped to her feet, then took a quick breath before running through the attack sequence one more time. Crush the power, compressing it into stone, then hurl it out. She was faster this time, doing in one second what had taken her two the first time. She felt she could probably get it down to .8, maybe .7 if she had more time to practice, but for now this would have to do.

"You'll have to hold the fort," Maya shouted. "This is going to be rough." She thought back to Tahpa, passing his Unique item around, and glanced over her friends.

She had a couple nice pieces of high sturdiness gear at the moment, but that was all feeding directly into her energy pool thanks to her new Shining Soul specialization. She grimaced. Keep them alive longer, or keep her own damage potential at its highest?

"I'm going to need this back when I respawn, so try not to die," she shouted, tossing her plate leggings to Star as she ran past, then trying to figure out who to give the helmet to. Andy was still barely level 10, Ben was being a jerk, and Runescale was... still on the floor meditating?

"Rune, what are you doing?" Maya called down to him.

"Charging up."

Maya sighed, then dropped down beside him. "Here. I need you to survive while I recharge my energy. It'll be several minutes."

Runescale patted the floor beside him without opening his eyes, but Maya had already shoved her helmet at him and jumped back up to their runway.

She slid out the entrance into the antechamber just as the boss's last attack shaved off another chunk of her health, bringing her dangerously low.

Then she was through the entrance and safe, in the cool dimness of the antechamber.

The sounds of the combat were muted, distant. She stood still for a moment, trying to calm her desperately racing pulse, to convince the game that she deserved out-of-combat regen now, not in 30 seconds.

Her energy pool was significantly smaller now without her items, but not as bad as she'd expected. Her health took a bigger dip. If she'd given away anything more, she may have dropped below her damage-taken and died on the spot. One thing she had to keep in mind in future. She remembered, now, that Eleona had once died immediately upon passing over Tahpa's token. Unequipping the gear keeping you alive during a fight could be deadly.

She exhaled slowly, pacing as her energy began to tick upward. It had felt so fast back when her total pool was under a hundred, but now every second felt interminable.

Then she checked her new spell.

Heart of Stone - Fires two solid stone missiles at a target. 5% chance to stun.

1 sec, 75 energy, 40 damage (physical)

Heart of Stone - Fires two solid stone missiles at a target. 5% chance to stun.

1.8 sec, 75 energy, 40 damage (physical)

She grimaced at the slower one. That could probably be deleted, or at least shoved so far down the 'other abilities' list that she'd never have to think about it again. Even amounting for the cooldown, it was faster to just keep casting the faster version. Plus she could get the chaining bonus for using the same attack over and over.

That was one disadvantage to Heart of Magma - as a sustained spell, it didn't gain any momentum bonus for being kept up. Heart of Stone, as a single-cast, would have both the drawback of a cooldown between casts and the upside of doing additional damage when cast repeatedly.

She wished she had enough raw magic to try again. If she could get it down to .7 or .6 seconds, then it would be truly valuable.

It wasn't exceptional, but she'd already proven that physical damage had a bonus against the Light-based boss. Hopefully this would be enough to let her finish him off.

She climbed back up, watching her energy tick up to full, then slid in and took in the situation.

Andy and Star were both missing, their bars grey and empty. Runescale was lying flat on his back, hands behind his head, eyes closed. Maya wanted to shout at him, but then noticed something. The boss... was firing his light bolts at the prone figure. But since Runescale was two tiers down, close to the step, the boss couldn't get a clear angle on him. His beams of light were flying over Runescale's body, missing completely.

Huh. The kid kept coming up with clever ideas. Maybe she shouldn't be so quick to dismiss him.

Ben hadn't moved, fingers digging into his forearms with how hard he was crossing his arms.

"Ben, what are you doing?" Maya shouted. "We're supposed to be--"

She paused, as Ben looked away. Something in his face...

Was he... crying?

She did not have time for this.

"If there's anything you can do, do it."

Maya ran to the opposite side of the track and started casting.

It was a different rhythm than she was used to, but the jagged pointed stone bolts cut through the boss's health at an almost visible rate.

Runescale sat up the moment she pulled aggro, then started crawling forward on his belly. She thought she saw a glint of light off something in his hand. A knife? Not a very big one, if so.

She wanted to demand to know what he was doing, but her health pool was low enough right now that she had to keep her full attention on evasion. Passively trusting luck would get her killed in under a minute.

Whatever Runescales' plan was, he could do it without her.

She'd dealt a substantial amount of damage by the time her energy ran out, but even with the bonus against Light, her Stone attacks weren't enough. The boss still hovered around 45% of his pool, far too much for being hammered with a full party. Well, Ben wasn't really being useful, and Runescale was being weird, but the rest of them had been hitting nearly nonstop.

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Something was very off in this fight's balance.

Runescale was creeping up behind the boss now, and Maya's energy was completely expended. Ben had switched from arms crossed to clenched fists at his sides. She couldn't help wondering if there was more to this than his grudge over her helping with his spell.

Then Star crawled in and Maya exhaled in relief. At least someone else would be dealing some damage. At this rate, the boss may have even started to regenerate.

"You want your gear back?" Star asked at once.

"Did it help?"

Star nodded. "But not enough, obviously."

Maya considered as she dodged and slipped away from the boss's relentless attacks. Right now, with her high tier, her respawn timer would be the longest of any of them. Leaving to recover her energy took a couple minutes less than dying would, but still took a lot of time.

She glanced at the few drops of magic left behind from her spellcasting. If she had more power, she could teach Heart of Stone to Star, but without raw magic there was nothing to do.

"You can respawn faster than me," Maya decided, calling across the room to Star. "Keep it. Give it back once we kill him."

Star nodded and resumed her attacks with Frost Bolt, her best spell.

If only Maya could get past that four-second cast time on Chill of the Depths! Star was their best damage dealer besides Maya herself, and making the boss as vulnerable to cold as he was to stone would be a big help.

Then the room shook with a roll of thunder. For a moment, the blades surrounding the boss fell still, revealing Runescale - he must have cast Runestrike from right beside the boss and now lay paralyzed, one hand outstretched toward the boss's leg...

But the huge lizardine's attacks had stopped, as though he were surprised by the unexpected attack... or, Maya suddenly realized, as if Runestrike had worked.

The boss stood paralyzed.

She wished potions were a thing. She needed energy and she needed it now. Runescale had given her the perfect opening and she was in no position to exploit it. Cursing, Maya sprinted for the entrance and jumped through out into the antechamber. Chill of the Depths required a lot of energy, and the minutes to recover that much would surely be far too long for Runescale's duration. From what she'd seen, the splash stun only lasted a few seconds.

Maya wished she could still see everyone's health bars when outside the boss room, she hated feeling blind and helpless. She needed to spend some time crafting better gear, increase her energy pool more. Running out of spells all the time was no good.

Then she slipped back inside to survey the changed battlefield.

Ben was gone, apparently having died despite hanging back and doing nothing. Good riddance. Maybe he'd respawn back in Kalyx and save her the trouble of figuring out what was wrong with him. Runescale hadn't survived his clever attack either; with her gone, he would have taken aggro immediately.

Andy was still holding on, firing arrows between calculated evasions, but his health was obviously not going to last much longer.

Star was out too. Maya glanced down at the sea of spinning glowing knives, long since returned to its full layer state. If Runescale had been below, she wouldn't have seen him.

And maybe she could use his strategy too.

Maya sprinted out, sliding below the lintel and out, then jumped down and crawled in below the deadly layer of knives. She giggled at the silliness of this, then inched forward lying flat on her stomach, up the tiers, until she was within reach of the boss's feet.

Then she lay still, watching the health bars. Andy's dropped sharply, then again, bringing it to the edge of empty. Maya held her breath, silently praying that he'd hold out long enough...

Then Runescale's name and bar lit back up again as he crawled in. She glanced back over her shoulder, to see him grinning at her as he scrambled forward.

"I see you've noticed my genius," he whispered, then reached for the boss.

"Wait, we should--"

Too late. The thunder strike was deafening from this close, and Maya blinked away dizziness as Runescale went stiff and the boss fell still.

"...wait for Star."

Maya reached for the boss's ankle and activated Chill of the Depths. The somatic requirements meant she had to roll onto her back so her other hand was free, and once when she had to reach out her hand entered the danger zone, taking a hit from the glowing knives and dropping her health substantially, but then she felt the spell activate and quickly pulled her hand back down before it could be further damaging.

Cold flowed through her, spreading out into the boss's still body, slowing and weakening him.

She would have two seconds of doubled cold damage after she released him, so she really hoped Star respawned soon. Right now, the only one doing any damage was Andy, still firing away with his bow. She wondered briefly if he would run out of arrows, then resolved to buy some better ones for him as a replacement if they survived this.

If only Fridget were here, with her ability to enchant mundane weapons to deal specific types of damage.

Maya clung on, surprised her energy remained still. She glanced at the spell description... yep, she'd gotten it confused with Storm Grasp, which dealt sustained damage and required upkeep energy cost. Chill of the Depths only required touch to be maintained once cast.

Hmm, now that provided opportunity.

She still had a second or two before Runescale and the boss would wake up from his lightning strike, so she carefully gathered her legs up beside her, then jumped into the air, wincing at the three spinning knives that hit her before she could clear their layer.

She grabbed the boss around the neck, wrapping her feet around his waist like he was giving her a piggy-back ride, renewing the touch requirement before the spell could fade.

She'd like to see him try to target his light beams on her now!

She knew the paralysis had worn off when he staggered under her unexpected weight, then drew two knives and instead of throwing them started stabbing at her arms and legs.

Oh, well. She'd hoped he'd be unable to adapt beyond his two programmed special moves, but it seemed that hope was in vain. At least he wasn't dealing additional light damage. And he was moving sluggishly under her Chill touch. In fact, he was moving very slowly. Did Chill of the Depths cancel speed buffs as well as adding a slowness effect?

Come on, Star... where are you?

It felt like it had to have been more than four minutes. She should have respawned by now. But maybe it was Maya's heightened awareness and intense focus that made every second feel like it lasted far longer.

Runescale saved her, stabbing the boss in the leg from beneath and drawing his ire. Apparently he was happy to ignore the archer so long as he had a debuff mage clinging to his back, but someone stabbing him in the foot was unforgivable.

Runescale only bought her about half a minute, during which she stared anxiously at Star's grey name and tried desperately to think of anything else she could do.

If not for the layer of blades, she could try old fashioned wrestling, knock the boss to the floor and restrain him physically. She'd spent enough time training hand to hand as Mayon, it might work. But... he was a massive lizardine, far bigger than Runescale, and she was only a medium-sized harpy. Somehow, she doubted wrestling him would work out in her favor, even if he didn't just take advantage of the chance to hold her in front of his spinning knives until she died.

Andy kept firing, gamely chipping away at the boss's health. 42%. Way too high. Insanely high. How were they supposed to finish this if everything they'd done was less than 10% of his health?

Well... do it all again five times over?

They did have all day. If she let go of trying to do it fast and accepted doing it at all.

Where was Star? They needed her ice, needed it soon. Maya's health kept dropping in steady little bursts as the boss slowly stabbed her in a reduced-speed blade flurry.

She started kicking, careful not to let her legs fall down to the level of the knives, doing pitiful damage but at least being annoying. She still had 49 energy too, she could cast anything that didn't require both hands without breaking the chill. So, Spark, basically.

Maya grimaced. When this was over, she'd better get some good loot out of it! Because this boss was being a real pain.

She cast Spark until she didn't have enough energy to cast it again, dropping the boss's health by an imperceptible amount.

When Runescale re-entered, she began to really worry. Neither Ben nor Star had returned, and they'd died minutes before Runescale. All three of them should be back by now.

At least Runescale was able to buy her a few more seconds with his stun. However he'd managed that, at least it was working reliably now. She wouldn't last another minute though, even with his distraction.

Star didn't appear. Runescale's bar went grey. And then a minute later, so did Maya's.

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