First Game 3: Harvest Due

John quickly tallied the amount of damage he and Vivian did to the scarecrow.

‘We’ve done around fifty,’ he calculated as his eyes swept over the boss. ‘Doesn’t look like that’s done anything major to it.’

“Newman!” Ramirez’s shout drew John out of his head. “Is that the ‘boss’ of this arena?”

The pair of knights were tense and ready to fight as they cautiously approached. John glanced back and saw Vivian remained close to the wall, one of her array sheets held between her fingers.

“Yeah, it is,” John replied. “Vivian and I have done some damage to it, but it doesn’t look like it’s been bothered much by it. It attacked us in the path we were on, but I think it switched to a different program with most of us close. I bet that’s the way to the exit and it's now designed to stop us from getting there.”

“Do you have any suggestions on how to proceed?” Ramirez asked. “Because this environment is not the best match for my abilities.”

“Know that feeling,” John muttered, flexing his gloved hand. “We can’t assume it won’t follow us down that path, since it started this fight in one.”

“So trying to run past it won’t guarantee our safety,” Ramirez said before sighing. “It would appear we have two options. Fully defeat it, or hobble it in some way and make a break for the exit.”

“With those options, going for the kill right off the bat is probably our best option,” John remarked. “And if our best efforts just cripple it, then we run, yeah?”

“We have no real reason to fight this thing to the ****,” the knight answered. “If we get the chance, we disengage. Donnelly, keep close and guard.”

“Aye, Ma’am,” Rowan intoned and shifted her position slightly.

John glanced back and saw Vivian surrounded by swirling Shine Dust, an array coming into form before her.

“Remember the first boss we faced with Aeolia?” she loudly asked when their eyes met, a grin on her lips. John nodded in understanding.

“Vivian’s cooking something up that will help us,” John told the knight and squire, following Vivian’s lead by not revealing just what she was doing. Tipping their hand when there was no guarantee that the boss couldn’t understand them was a dumb idea.

“Understood,” Ramirez said in a low voice, clearly understanding the need for the vagueness. “Will it affect us too?”

“No,” John replied.

Ramirez nodded then shifted her gaze to the scarecrow. “Then let’s not give this boss any longer to plan against us. Donnelly, let’s go.”

Ramirez’s body glinted with sparks of electricity and she dashed at the scarecrow. In an instant, she reached the boss and feinted to one side once it tried to swipe at her. With a flourish, she slashed at the boss’ legs, carving large tears in its burlap skin.

15 DMG

The scarecrow brought its scythe down upon her, only for its weapon to be blocked by Rowan, the squire coming to her knight’s defense, their blades locking. Ramirez was quick to take advantage of this and rapidly thrust her thin sword into the scarecrow’s arm.

21 DMG

Ramirez’s strikes tore through the boss’ arm, straw and splinters falling out of its wounds. John rushed forward, calling on Senka to supply him with mana to manifest a Vessel Cloak. John jabbed the flexible blade of dark mana into one of the wounds, lodging into the wooden bone underneath the layers of straw.

He fired off a pointblank Wind Shot through the blade; the explosive burst snapped the boss’ bone and caused the limb to flop over limply, barely holding on by a few bits of burlap.

25 DMG

‘Man, thing’s a sponge,’ John complained as he leapt away from the scarecrow’s retaliatory swipe with its other arm. ‘I hate high HP enemies.’

‘At least it doesn’t have the defenses to withstand our attacks,’ Senka said. ‘We may be able to cripple it and reap the reward for beating it.’

‘I don’t know,’ John thought, something was bothering him about this whole situation. ‘It could have caught us in the passage, but seemed to keep its distance, even when it sped up. Was it leading us here? If so, why?’

John couldn’t dwell on those thoughts as the scarecrow began to flail around, using its arms to swat them away.

“It seems disarming it has made it angry,” Ramirez noted coolly. “It’s not even trying to collect its weapon. We should try to press the advantage. Can that sword of yours stretch a great distance? Setting off an attack in its head would likely heavily disable it.”

“Only a short distance more than this,” John answered, shaking the sword a bit. “Basically, whatever material I have going up my arm is what I can add to it. Still need to get close for that sort of move.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m done,” Vivian announced as she approached them, an array floating in front of her. “Keep its eyes off me for a second. I can’t hide and set everything up at the same time.”

“We’ll screen you,” Ramirez said before nodding at Rowan. “Press the offense. Keep it off-balance.”

Rowan nodded once and the pair of Order knights rushed back into the frey. The scarecrow’s flailing had diminished slightly, and it seemed to take their approach seriously enough, reaching with straw tendrils to pick up its scythe. Before it could, Ramirez took off with blistering speed, sword gleaming in a silvery arc as she cleaved through those tendrils with a wide swing.

Rowan stepped in a second later, coming to a stop at Ramirez’s left, her larger sword intercepting a strike by the boss’ wounded limb; the last threads holding its lower forearm and hand to the rest of its body broke and it fell harmlessly to the ground.

With the two Order members occupying the scarecrow’s attention, John and Vivian dashed in close. The air around them rippled with Vivian’s distorting magic, projecting them as further away than they actually were. With that alteration of their location and Ramirez and Rowan’s efforts to keep its arms busy, the scarecrow was unable to stop Vivian from pressing the array to its chest.

The circle of arcane symbols flashed with silver light as it took effect, a blanket of raw **** pressing against every inch of the boss’ body to lock it in place. Vivian had indicated that it would only hold for a few seconds so John didn’t hesitate to thrust his dark mana blade into its head, a Wind Shot loaded into its tip.

45 DMG

The stored spell unleashed like it had on the thing’s arm, exploding the boss’ head like a balloon, the hat it wore flying off into the air. John withdrew his blade and skipped back as the array fizzled and the boss flailed about blindly.

“Damn, I hoped that would kill it,” John spat. “Just how much health does this thing have?”

“I can’t imagine it has much left,” Ramirez assessed. “Not with that much damage.”

The words had barely left the knight’s lips when the scarecrow’s body began to contort, a series of sickening cracks echoing around them. Its sack body began to rip apart, tendrils of woven straw shooting out like snakes, some twisting into makeshift limbs and others striking out in a writhing tempest, forcing everyone further back.

“Of fucking course! A second phase,” John cursed as he watched the scarecrow distort into something closer to a spider in design. Its body was now suspended in the air, held up by woven limbs that burst from its back. More tentacles of straw came from its front, these more like feelers, moving around seeking things to attack.

Its original legs hung limply under it but its arms remained active, tendrils sprouting from them too. And from where its head used to be, several thick cords of straw lashed about like some mutated tongue trying to drag food down.

“I take it this is some game thing,” Ramirez said as Rowan tried to repress a shiver.

John nodded. “Yeah, sometimes after a damage threshold is hit, a boss will change up how it fights.”

“Wonderful,” the knight sighed and brandished her sword. “Did the damage we do get erased too?”

“Can’t tell. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t,” John answered. “Given how much health this thing had, I’m going to say what we’ve done to it wasn’t healed.”

“At least there’s that,” Ramirez said, lighting arcing off her blade. “As much as I didn’t want to chance it, we may need to use riskier methods to get past it. Getting bogged down on the first boss of the day is not an optimal play.”

John nodded. “If we get it into the center of this clearing, then that should give us the best chance of any fire not spreading to everything. Or at least make it not happen as fast.”

“My thoughts exactly. And something tells me this thing isn’t going to just keep standing there.”

Once more, the words were scarcely out of her mouth when the contorted scarecrow skittered towards them, tendrils flailing about like a thousand whips. Ramirez dashed forward to meet its charge, arcs of electricity streaming off her armor like one of those plasma orbs.

She deftly danced through the storm of straw, sidestepping each strike like she knew where they were going to fall well before they did, and cutting them apart before they could recoil for a second attempt.

“She’s really fast,” John dumbly said as he watched the dance.

“Knight Ramirez is one of the best the Order has stationed here,” Rowan spoke, a note of high respect in her voice. “With her magic, she can easily outpace any threat.”

“Should we help?” Vivian asked. “I don’t think we can match her speed, but if she keeps its attention on her, we can strike it unawares.”

“Tactically speaking, keeping distractions away from her would be best,” Rowan answered. “While Knight Ramirez’s senses are increased by her magic, they are not by the same degree as her reflexes. She could strike one of us by accident.”

“But we can set up something for when she disengages,” John said. “She’s pulling it towards the center of the area. Vivian, do you think you can set up the mine array and set the trigger to react only when its mana is present?”

“With a sample of it I could,” Vivian answered.

“Candle can go and fetch some of its straw,” John remarked, summoning the fox spirit. “That’ll work, right?”

“It should,” Vivian replied, Shine Dust already summoned and weaving into an array. “I think we should try to get fresh straw in case its mana has changed. Rowan, is there a way for you to relay our plan to Ramiez?”

Rowan nodded. “There are some callsigns for this sort of maneuver.”

“Then let’s get going,” John announced and had Candle race into the engagement zone. The fox spirit took to the task with incredible vigor, zipping about like she was enhanced by Ramirez’s magic herself. Thankfully, she didn’t have to get too close due to the steady movement of the fight, sweeping up behind the scarecrow and picking up a mawfull of its discarded entrails.

While Candle raced back to John, he covered Rowan as she skirted the edge of the engagement zone. Given that the boss could turn its stuffing into long tendrils with little apparent effort, it was safer to move with backup in case things took a turn for the worse.

“Ma’am,” Rowan called out. “Setting up a stationary strike zone. Zero, Zero.”

Ramirez stopped her seemingly endless fight against the tendrils for a moment to shout, “Understood!” and returned to her fighting retreat. Their move to inform the knight didn’t go unnoticed and several additional tendrils lashed out at them. John and Rowan tried to dodge, but the strikes came too fast for either of them to completely dodge.

-10 HP

John took the hit on his side, a glancing blow that nearly took him off his feet. Rowan, however, was hit squarely in the chest and was knocked to the ground, her armor keeping her from taking heavy damage. Before any more tendrils could attack her prone form, John fired off a Wind Shot into the mass of descending tentacles.

5 DMG

The blast did little in the way of damage, but it did **** the appendages back long enough for Rowan to jump to her feet. Further attacks were impeded as Ramirez picked up the speed of her ****, drawing the scarecrow’s full attention.

“You okay?” John asked Rowan as they disengaged, retreating towards Vivian in the center of the clearing.

“I am fine,” Rowan tersely replied. “The Order’s armory would be in a sorry state if that was enough to put me down.”

“Done,” Vivian announced as her array flashed once the circuit was complete. “John, the fire.”

“On it,” he said, casting Fiery Pursuit at the array. The fireball shot towards Vivian’s work and vanished into the spell matrix, the silver dust glowing red for a moment. The trap set, they backed away as Ramirez, drawn in by their retreat, disengaged from the boss and followed after them.

She skirted around the array, then stood right behind it, pointing at the scarecrow with her sword, taunting it wordlessly. Whether the boss could actually see it wasn’t something John had time to ponder as it lunged towards them, heedless of the array between it and its targets.

As it bounded over the array, it triggered, releasing the stored fireball right into its chest. With the boost from the array’s enhancements, the blast was more like a spear of fire, thrusting up to stab at the scarecrow’s heart.

80 DMG
EXP withheld until game completion.
Loot added to the pool.

The lancing flame sputtered out a second before the scarecrow vanished into a pile of dust and John let out a breath.

“Was worried there a bit, about the fire catching,” he admitted.

“It might have if we hadn’t killed it,” Ramirez said. “But we needed to hobble it at the very least so we had little recourse. At least for now we won’t have to risk it.”

Before any more could be said, a popup appeared in front of all of them.

Team Golmerk has crossed the finish line, taking first place!

“Guess they lucked out and found a path that didn’t take them through here,” Vivian remarked as the notifications faded.

“I figured all paths would lead here,” John admitted. “Especially with how the boss took up a guard position.”

“Whatever the case is, we’re wasting time,” Ramirez coolly said. “I see no need to turn our trek to the exit into a race between us. Shall we just leave as one group?”

“It’ll cut the amount of stuff we could potentially find, but I think trying to grind out the maze isn’t a good idea with what we’ve got ahead of us,” John answered. “I just hope we all collected enough.”

“We did find several crop caches and dealt with a number of hound golems,” Ramirez reported as they made their way towards the suspected exit.

“Same with us,” John said. Then he sighed. If this was just the first round, how hard were the others going to be?

Today was looking like it was going to be very long.

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