When two quarrel, a third rejoices

“You’re crazy.” Ilis told John as she realized what he was doing.

Down in the forgemaster’s cavern, the two groups had started an all out war after staring at each other for a few seconds, the Langtand queen had smelled the scent of her youngling on the forgemaster and with a pitiful yet furious shriek, she had launched herself at the humongous robot. Even as the scent of searing flesh filled the cavern, the naked skin of the Lantand queen roasting from the heat of the forge, the berserk creature didn’t let up.
Her long, sharp teeth tried to cut at the steel plates covering the walking forge’s arms while the forgemaster itself slammed his heavy hammer down on her back, only to have it bounce off harmlessly from the crystals coating it. Even the hulking monstrosity that was the forge master couldn’t easily break the crystals that covered the langtands it seemed.

Around the two bosses fighting each other in the middle of the room, the remaining langtands were brawling with the robots that used to man the forges, alongside the few robots that just got done getting fitted with their weaponry. Blood dripped on the floor as the cavern descended into pandemonium. John however, saw this as a good thing as he was leisurely drawing his bow and started to fire off his skill imbued arrows.

“I might be crazy, but it works! Why fight them on your own if you can have them fight each other, and then steal the exp when they are nearly done? Wait, you never played League? Last hitting works!” he cheerfully remarked as the messages notifying him of his growing exp started to come in. “I need to learn to use my skills effectively right? And I could use some extra exp, sooooo….” John just smirked as he instruceted his pets to try long range attacks or at least hit and run styles. This was the perfect place for them to grow in power.

Ilis shook her head, and instead of joining in on the skeetshoot, she sat down against the wall and started to fiddle with some of her inventions. “Tell me when ya need me or when I can start looting them. I did my part.” she said with a satisfied grin. John migh be crazy, yes, but on the other hand, he did have a point.

John spotted a langtand running away from a duo of robots, their axes raised high, the two of them almost running out of view as the forgemaster slammed down the langtand queen on the floor. Instead of panicking, John aimed one of his Marking Shot arrows at the most backward robot. It only grazed the droid, but John didn’t mind. Instead, he had already loaded two arrows onto his bow, sending them flying and with a satisfied smirk, he saw the arrows arc around the fighting bosses slightly and soon after, he saw just one robot chasing after the fleeing Langtand, another burst of exp filling his bar.

John made sure to only shoot when a creature was near **** or when one side started to look more powerful than the other. John needed this fight to last as long as possible if he wanted to net himself the biggest exp gain.

John kept going like this for about ten minutes, the big bosses were still throwing each other around the place, the sound of bones breaking as the hammer hit an unarmored piece of the langtand queen’s body echoing out through the cave just as many times as the screeching of bending metal, but the rest of the minions seemed to be nearing their final breaths. John finally got ready for the grand finale.

He took a few deep breaths, waited for his energy to recharge and then set his eyes on the two leaders. Their fight had been brutal, both of them looked to be on their last legs and John was more than happy to take advantage of that. He instructed Toph and de-summoned Jack, using another charge of Wildform to change his legs into Jack’s counterparts, jumping high up from his vantage point as he fired a boring shot just as the forgemaster raised his hammer, with the sound of glass shattering, the teeth of the langtand queen were smashed, and with the well placed shot from John’s bow, the hinges on Troj-nons wrist were broken too. The hammer fell down along with the huge hand holding it. Only now did the two bosses look around and realize what had happened. They saw John, standing in the cave aiming his bow one more time. “The end.” John laughed triumphantically. His hawk eye had shown him exactly where the heart of the Langtand queen was. Her body, broken and battered laying on her back with the almost unrecognizable forgemaster, leaking his molten steel from over a dozen holes, holding her down with his weight and remaining hand.

The langtand was the first to go, Johns favorite skill imbued on the arrow, Boring shot recently leveled up due to the power leveling spree just before, tore through her fleshy chest and pierced a gaping hole through the queen’s most important organ. A rush of exp flew at John as the forgemaster tried to put himself upright, only for John to shake his head. “Don’t bother, you’re dead too.”

A loud peep echoed through the room as a stalachtite, freshly sharpened by John’s beloved pangolin fell from the ceiling, caving in the head of the robot, destroying it’s processor unit and sending yet another rush of experience into John and his pets’ bars.

When the messages started to pour in, John plopped down on his ass, wiping his brow as all around him, dead langtands and the remnants of the forge droids were scattered. Jack re-summoned himself, purring happily as Toph dropped down from the ceiling too, both pets pouncing on John in celebration.

“Ilis, it’s safe, you can start looting now, take what you want from the big guy first I’d say, I wonder what he’ll drop when I loot him alright!” he called out.

Ilis’ head popped up from the alcove, her eyes going wide for a moment as she saw that everything except for the geek cuddling his pets was dead. “I underestimated you John.” she spoke softly. “Turns out you can think after all!”