The Boss Room

“Looks like this is it.” I say looking at the group. “We’ve got a whole squad of 1-stars.” Now Elizabeth can start pulling her weight.

We wander over to the boss’s door. The vampire joins us, looking pleased with himself. “You’ve done well so far.”

“What can you tell us about this Mox character?” I ask.

“No more than I have already I’m afraid. As a denizen of this dungeon I must still show some deference to its rules.”

Great.

Now that we’re all leveled up we could probably rip this guy apart.

I hope he realizes that.

“Anyone else?” I look to the team. “An Archin of Shae’Hamora, what do we do about that?”

“Come back with more potions.” Elizabeth says.

“I am so broke it’s not funny.”

Melli speaks up. “Archons are divine beings. They’re the embodiments of their god’s laws.”

“So I won’t get my monster slayer bonuses against it.” Elizabeth sighs.

“Afraid not. They’re not living so they don’t bleed either. So those stars are useless as well. Along with poison.”

I watch Elizabeth swipe her hands through the air. Her brow is creased in comparison contraction. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“Switching out my stars.” She says defensively.

“From what to what?” I press.

Elizabeth thre her hand up and presented her stats to me.

Manticore Spikes- Type: Attack - Effect: The User projects a fan of boney spikes at short range.

Mighty Grip- Type: Passive - Effect: Any creatures grappled by the user take crushing damage while grabbed.

I look at her suspiciously. “You’re going to grapple a divine being?”

“If I can.” She smiles, her teeth almost looking like fangs.

“How many stars do you have?” Melli asks curiously.

“About ten.”

“All from monsters? Wow!”

“1 star monsters.” She says bitterly. “All the good ones are long gone.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s almost like there’s people out there slaying them.” Now I see the genius of the kingdom co-opting the adventuring guilds. They’re using their own ambitions and ties with the star system to cause their own extinction. One day, perhaps one day soon there will be no more monsters left to slay, no more gods to worship, and nothing left to challenge their rule.

Cryus shakes me out of the morose thought. Feeding Melli’s soul to the prince had disturbed me more than I realized. To see such an important figure so taxed by a simple blessing was upsetting. “What can hurt an Archon?” Cyrus asks, ever the optimist.

Melli shrugs. “The gods try not to make their soilders with exploitable weaknesses.”

I smile. “Unless of course it’s a weakness the gif itself has.”

So daylight. “Elizabeth sighs, at the bottom of a cave.”

“Maybe we should give more thought to coming back.” Melli says. “We have an opportunity few get. We know what we’re fighting.”

“So you can pull in some of your adventure guild buddies and snipe the dungeon out from under us? No.” I say.im quite determined to die here if I must.

Melli sighs. “We have no no healing, half our stars are useless against it, and no way to exploit its weaknesses. How are we going to win this?”

“It’s simple.” I say. “We’re going to hit it until it dies.”

——-

Short chapter today.

Question for the audience.

Would you prefer the boss fight to come out in two parts one tomorrow and one Monday, or in one part on Saturday. It’s taking a while to write.