As he neared the top of the stairs where the large skeleton was stationed, he slowed to think about the best way to deal with the impediment. The skeleton was positioned in the middle of the top step; its long claws gave it the reach to be able to attack the entire width of the stairway. Ewtain wanted to see how fast it was, so he sheathed his dagger and just wielded his short sword. He kept the weapon out mostly to swat at any zombies that got too close to him, as he had no intention of attacking the skeleton directly. When he was in range of the undead creature’s attacks, it struck out at him with a claw in what looked like an attempt to either grab him or skewer him. He dove to his right and rolled on a step.
Ewtain came out of his roll, and his prescient reflexes ability triggered again, but he was given no indication of how to escape whatever danger was coming. He took a quick look at the Occultist and determined that it was casting a spell. A cloud of gas descended over the entire chamber, including the area south of the water, and two debuffs appeared on his HUD display. One of the effects reduced his Dexterity by 30%, and the other slowed movement by 10%. The debuffs would last for one minute, and in addition, the gas had damaged him by 50 HP. I need to get to that caster fast.
He tried to get past the skeleton, but his reactions were slower than normal, and he barely evaded its attempts to turn him into a kebob. The timers on the debuffs were down to 30 seconds when he heard another round of rocks hit the ground behind him. He hoped that everyone was fine and spared a glance to see after the attack was over. Unfortunately, he was far from where the rest of the group was fighting, so he could see little of them. He sensed an attack from the skeleton, and he dove down the stairs but was unable to avoid a slashing claw that raked him across his back. The attack was extremely painful, and it dropped him below half health. The attack also knocked him out of his controlled roll, so he tumbled further than he had intended, only coming to a halt when he crashed into a zombie, which fell down as a result of the impact.
He slowly regained his feet, realizing that he had dropped his short sword during the fall. Fortunately, the skeleton did not give chase; its command must be to simply protect the Occultist. He spotted the sword and retrieved it quickly, shoving yet another zombie out of his way as he did so. As he turned back to the skeleton, he saw a small explosion of fire on a fleshy area of its right leg. Vultressant had finally switched targets, but the strike did minimal HP damage, and the creature showed no signs that it had been affected by the attack at all. He had been hoping that ranged support would be enough to distract the skeleton while he ran by it, but it seemed that plan was destined to fail.
He carefully approached the furthest reach of the enormous skeleton, and he had to dodge back from a sweeping slash attack similar to the one that had just caught him on the back. The skeleton held its other arm poised to thrust at him if he decided to move towards it, so there was no way for Ewtain to safely run by it; he was stymied. He glanced back at the group to see if aid would be coming soon.
The huge zombie was down, as were several of the smaller ones; he had no idea how they had managed it since decapitation hadn’t worked for him. There was, however, another of the large bird-monster zombies that had arrived from the south that they were currently engaged with, and this one still had both of its arms. The small Dracon seemed to be flying towards him. Vultressant was facing his direction, casting another of his fire arrow spells.
Ewtain sensed another attack coming that he couldn’t dodge away from, and he looked up to see the Occultist casting, followed by another cloud of gas descending towards him. The debuff timers were reset to 60 seconds, and he lost another 50 HP. He needed to get to that Occultist. He could see that Vultressant was standing too close to the platform to have a shot at it, who was back near the runed door.
Wisp flew overhead, and the skeleton extended a claw and tried to grab the little Dracon. Wisp easily evaded the attack by flying over the extended claw before dipping back down and breathing a cloud of bright green gas at the attacking arm. When the gas came into contact with the area around the elbow of the giant skeleton, it flashed and began dissolving the entire area—bone, muscle, and sinew alike. While some gas dissipated harmlessly, the portions that stuck caused substantial damage. The skeleton seemed unaware, perhaps incapable of feeling pain, and continued trying to catch Wisp, who had wisely flown out of reach.
Wisp hovered above the monster, looking down at it. The skeleton swung its arm upward in a futile attempt to swat him like a fly. Its arm detached mid-attack and flew across the platform. This gave Ewtain an opening.
Ewtain advanced on the right side of the stairs as the skeleton’s left arm was now a third of its previous length. His movement caught the monster’s attention, and it swung its good arm in a wide arc. Ewtain was ready for this, and he dodged back out of reach of the sharp spear-like claws, but this time he ran forward after the arm passed by him. With most of its other arm gone, the skeleton had no backup attack ready. Once the sweeping attack missed, Ewtain easily ran past the skeleton despite the slow and dex debuffs.
There was about 100 feet between him and the Occultist, and he ran at a full sprint to close the distance. It was already beginning to cast another spell, so he thought of what might stop it. When he felt that he was close enough, he hurled a dagger. The weapon did not strike its intended target; instead of hitting the center of the Occultist’s chest, the hilt slammed into its shoulder.
The Occultist staggered but finished its spell, and Ewtain heard another round of rocks falling on his friends. It immediately began another incantation, and Ewtain drew his short sword as he continued to run. When he was just a few feet away from the caster, his prescient reflexes ability triggered, but again, he had nowhere to go. Blue lightning spread out in front of the Occultist in an arc that went down to the stone ground and up nearly twenty feet. Ewtain was fully engulfed in the spell, and he was sent flying backwards, landing heavily on the ground. There was a five-second stun debuff, and he had to just lie there waiting for the effect to elapse. He noted that he was down to just 38 health, so if he took another hit, he would be out of the fight and likely killed.
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When the stun wore off, he was able to move, but he rose with difficulty. He was in a great deal of pain from the attack, and his low HP might be having an adverse effect on him. He drank a healing potion; he felt a little better as the magic took effect, and he again went to retrieve his weapon. This time it was close to where he had landed, so he quickly grabbed it and advanced on the Occultist again. It was casting again, so Ewtain circled to its side to avoid being trapped by another lightning blast. He lunged at the caster. It was fully immersed in its spell and made a feeble attempt to dodge Ewtain’s attack. His blade sank deep into its side, disrupting the incantation. He quickly followed up with eviscerate.
The Occultist staggered from the attack; its HP dropped below half, and it suffered a bleed debuff to boot. The bleed effect would remove an additional 9 HP per second for the next eight seconds. Ewtain continued to circle around the caster. “Not so tough without your spells, huh?” he taunted. It growled and uttered something in a guttural language that Ewtain couldn’t understand. It then waved a hand, and a clear, glowing shield appeared in front of it. It resembled a plastic riot shield but floated independently, forming a semicircle that protected most of its flanks; now only a rear attack would be able to get through the barrier.
Ewtain slashed at the barrier, but his sword simply bounced off of it. The Occultist began casting again, and as it spoke and performed its incantation, it pivoted, keeping Ewtain in front of it and the barrier between them.
This was bad. Ewtain knew that if he was hit by anything, he would be down. He frantically tried to get around the shield, but the Occultist just had to turn a bit to keep up with him. He struck at the shield several times, hoping it had a damage threshold and would shatter after enough hits, but it held firm.
The Occultist finished casting, and he saw a cloud descending, but it was towards the south and not anywhere around him. That probably meant that the cloud could harm the Occultist as well, but it might just be an AOE that it wanted to do the most damage with by hitting a group instead of just one combatant who was currently unable to damage it. Ewtain rethought his logic on that; he could reach the south wall of the room, so it certainly had the range to hit both him and the party.
Ewtain continued to circle and strike, but he was unable to breach the Occultist’s defenses. It was only a matter of time before it cast another lightning strike, dooming him. It might have to drop its shield to cast the spell, but that was a big ‘if’ to rely on. Also, it still had plenty of mana—over 75% of its MP—and appeared to be regaining spent mana pretty quickly.
He saw the skeleton he had gotten around attacking something, which gave him hope. He positioned himself just east of the glowing door, which put the back of the Occultist towards the skeleton and hopefully the rest of his party. The Occultist began casting at the same moment that he saw Maroftis bullrush the skeleton and send both of them over the edge of the stairs. Vultressant and Vanya emerged at the top of the stairs, and Vultressant started a spell of his own, a glowing arrow forming in front of him. Vanya began running towards the north wall, but she angled so as to avoid running in the path of the Wizard’s spell. Vultressant sent his bolt a moment before the Occultist finished what Ewtain recognized as the rock falling spell, and it was struck squarely in the back, the fire igniting its robes. It staggered forward, and the shielding spell it had been maintaining dropped, allowing Ewtain an easy opening. The Occultist had no armor to mitigate damage, so an eviscerate followed by a regular sword attack was enough to kill it.
Ewtain breathed a sigh of relief, but the undead monsters did not simply fall to the ground as he had hoped might happen when the Occultist was defeated. The large skeleton that was at the top of the stairs on the east side of the platform moved from its post and headed towards the rest of his party. Ewtain thought it likely that the Occultist had given instructions or commands to the denizens of this unholy temple, and with it gone, they were now able to act on their own.
Ewtain had little time to ponder further; he ran to help. He felt there was little he could do to directly defeat the skeleton, as he had only tried to evade the other one without truly fighting it. Slowing as he approached, he tried to formulate a strategy. The only damage he had seen inflicted on the other skeleton was by Wisp. Maroftis had tackled it down the stairs, likely crushing some bones, but Ewtain hadn’t witnessed the aftermath to be certain.
Attacking the elbow area wasn’t feasible, but as he examined the legs, he noticed a fair amount of muscle and tendons still attached. He decided to target the hamstrings. His short sword was primarily designed for stabbing, but it could be used to slash or chop at the tendons of the legs.
Isla positioned herself between the skeleton and the two casters while Taloc shot arrows from his position near the top of the western steps. Maroftis was nowhere to be seen, nor was the little Dracon. Ewtain positioned himself behind the skeleton and dodged in and out, striking it behind the knees. After his third successful strike, the skeleton turned and swung a claw at him. He had already dodged back, so he only needed to retreat a bit further to avoid the backhanded attack.
Isla had been watching him fight, and she followed his cue and took the opportunity to strike it in the leg as its attention was diverted. Her weapon was longer and designed for slashing; it cut through the muscles and sinew with much greater ease. While her strike failed to completely sever the leg, the skeleton no longer had enough of the leg to remain stable, and it went down on its knee.
Taloc shouldered his bow and ran to join the melee. Together, the three of them managed to bring down the skeleton, though Taloc suffered an injury from one of its clawed thumbs. Once the fight was over, Vanya attended to his wound.
“Good work, everyone,” Ewtain said once the skeleton had stopped moving. He surveyed the rest of the underground temple and saw only a dozen smaller zombies wandering about, with Maroftis slowly ascending the stairs. “Hey Vult, I can guard you while you eat that guy’s soul. The others can mop up the zombies. I can’t seem to kill them anyway. I mean, what kind of self-respecting zombie can still fight without a head? It’s a crazy world.”
Vultressant smiled and started walking towards the corpse of the Occultist. “And don’t think that you can go into that opening on the south wall without me,” Ewtain said, pointing an accusing finger at each of the other party members individually.