Great strides towards the end (Thursday 3/7)

A Floor 9 Vessel. The hunched over being was a muscular man, the upper body had runes of blood painted on the sickly grey skin while the remainders of robes covered the lower half, secured by a thick black whip bound to make a makeshift belt. The Vessel held a staff made of rusty metal in one hand and a short knife in the other.

The Vessel was a pretty hard boss all things considered. They were currently fighting the Floor 9 version for the third time. The fight against the Vessel was long-winded and dangerous; however, it had yielded John three ‘Key of Forgotten Sins’ already, which he was keeping to use them on the tenth floor as they did indeed have the ‘Revealer of Secrets’ attribute. To be exact, it was ‘Revealer of Secrets 2’, which added a bit of context to the attribute, informing him that this key would only work on Secret Rooms of the Core Floor 10 or below.

‘Which in its entirety just means that I cannot farm easy bosses to get keys for higher level Secret Room,’ John thought as he waited for the Vessel to enter his first phase. As per usual with the bosses his Gamer ability spawned, it was invulnerable before that.

The Vessel had three phases, symbolized by where the knife was currently resting inside his body. First Phase started with the Vessel stabbing his staff-holding arm. Black blood oozed from the wound and dripped to the ground.

In the first fight the Vessel summoned things called Bloodworms, these were pretty harmless if taken care of early, as leaving them alone would make them grow. The kicker, however, was that they were literally impossible to kill, only to keep small. They only died once the boss died therefore at least one person always needed to deal with the Bloodworms. Salamander usually took that job.

“Gruuuaaahh,” the Vessel's ghoulish cry echoed over the battlefield, a plateau of dark grey stone atop a tall pillar, connected to other ones like it through bridges of spikey rocks. The Demon dungeon reminded John a lot of the ones in Diablo 3. Actually, the same was true for the Angels, but that was a matter for another time.

The blood oozing from the wound fell to the ground, all of them crawling towards the first Bloodworm that had formed which Salamander kept under constant fire so it wouldn’t grow. This would work until the start of Phase 3, so John left her to it and instead ran towards the Vessel. The staff it carried made it immune to ranged attacks, this made Sylph useless for the most part, which is why the tempest elemental just hung around and waited for Phase 2 to roll around. It also meant that John had to bust out the Mana Blade Spell, “Undine!” he said as he conjured the blade, sending some of his mana through the water elemental and getting it back a moment later, imbued with her properties.

The short blade of deep blue appeared around his hand, having its base on his wrist. The Vessel was immune to ranged attacks, but it was also slow and weak, making it an easy target for melee attacks. It was, therefore, his and Aclysia’s job to wound the boss in this first phase while the other elementals kept back, with the exception of Undine who came with him to imbue his Mana Blade with the water property, as that dealt extra damage to the Vessel.

Aclysia was the first striking the boss, unsurprisingly, her combat stats remained miles above his.

Her blade delivered a blunt blow to the being’s chest, Aclysia used the flat side of Ashkandi. This was due to the Bloodworm, every major injury the vessel took in Phase one would spawn another one of the things, so their goal was instead to clobber it into the next phase.

“Hrtzrkr Jhrtarzk Kur’krul,” the Vessel mumbled something in demonic even as the blade of John’s sliced through him. Mana Blade was an awesome skill for several reasons. It had two applications, one was physical and one was arcane wounds, the latter dealt a lot less damage to people, but it was awesome at ignoring most armor, only enchanted ones being in the way. The next reason was the range of application, limited only by his mana supply. While the costs rose exponentially the longer the blade got at the half-meter length, it cost him only 20 mana and an additional 50% for an added property, like water right now. While the Mana Blade only lasted three seconds that was more than enough time to get a hit in and because he could change the length and property as needed it was versatile as fuck. If he had gotten the skill earlier he would have properly specialized as a melee fighter, but his build was looking pretty good by now, and Aclysia already filled the niche for him.

“Analea hurhjartk, HRADATRZT,” a shockwave **** both John and Aclysia back, dealing 10% health damage to both of them. This skill was another reason why the fight was properly hard; the boss dealt maximum health damage. While this was of little concern to Aclysia or any of his elementals, John himself had very little combat regeneration, his shield easily took the hit but, nevertheless, they couldn’t allow him to use that ability too often.

The shockwave wasn’t the only part of that skill either, several of the runes on the Vessels body lightened up, dark energy crackling and then an arch of tainted lightning that hit the ground. Three Imps spawned, knee-high fury beasts with big noses and even bigger teeth that jumped towards John. “Gnome!” “I-I got it!” the stone elemental answered with mustered courage and isolated the three minor demons from John and Aclysia with the erection of a small stone arena where she could take them out on her own.

They continued dealing damage to the Vessel this way, Sylph commentating the whole thing from above. “Aaaaand Aclysia executes a brilliant overhead strike, bludgeoning the opponents head but he just keeps chanting, man, I mean, to keep talking when you're being demolished like that by a woman made from metal, libido and dragon scales is pretty remarkable, wuuu-ii. Johnnie swing those arms a bit more, should have raised Strength instead. ‘But I need more mana,’ he said, ‘to use my skills more,’ he said. Should have learnt how to properly smack the guy over the head I tell you. THERE GOES THE SECOND SHOCKWAVE, can they stop him from using a third, oh yeah, they can that was the phase change wave, finally.”

The Vessel ripped the knife out of his arm and rammed it into his solar plexus. He went limp for a moment then he leaned back and hovered. The arms stretched outwards, his staff left his hand and teleported behind the Vessels back. It looked like a very cheap crucification, especially as the second arms opened a wound, both of which caused more blood to ooze out and a second Bloodworm to form.

The second phase added another ticking timer; the Vessel would cast the max HP shockwave every 20 seconds while the growth of the Bloodworms was also increased in this phase. “Something to do!” Sylph enthusiastically shouted and started her job of keeping the second Bloodworm small with lightning attacks. “Ghurtztka Ghurtzka!” the vessel shouted, his voice several tones deeper and echoing, more Imps spawned as a result.

The vessel was still immune to ranged attacks in this phase but didn’t hover high enough to be out of range for their melee attacks. Basically, the strategy here was the same as in phase 1, Sylph and Salamander kept the Bloodworms from growing so the creatures wouldn’t pose a threat. Gnome was to defeat the Imps, while Undine, John, and Aclysia kept damaging the boss. Unlike the first phase, however, the Bloodworms now grew faster than the two could damage them without John’s mana as support.

‘This boss fight is a giant DPS-check,’ John thought as he kept hacking at the Vessels torso. On lower floors they out leveled the boss, and a DPS-check you easily surpass was one of the easiest things in history, they could even ignore the Bloodworms on floor 6 and 7, simply because they didn’t become big enough to be a threat before the boss bit the dust.

John kept a close eye on his Mana Protection, once the pre-emptive shield was depleted he would have to deactivate the skill, otherwise a single shockwave would rip most of his mana away and he needed that for the final phase, which they were about to enter.

“Grrrrrrrrr,” the Vessel growled and gripped the knife’s handle with both hands. In a scream of pain, he ripped it out and then, in a disgusting display of raw brutality, rammed it into his forehead. Again, he went limp. Then the black blood ran from the wound and covered the weapon, hid it under a growing crystalline structure that looked like a horn.

The Vessels body swelled, muscles became huge bulges that partially ripped apart the surface skin. The boss grew to three meters tall until a demonic goliath with skin as red as the runes that covered it stood before them.

The last phase of the boss fight was the simplest mechanically. Bloodworms would spawn and grow at a constant rate; however, the boss was also killing itself by doing so, however, the Bloodworms would not only attack John and his group but also try to return to the Vessel and heal him. That was the main reason for the keeping the Bloodworms in earlier phases as small as possible because in this last phase the boss emitted an aura that dealt constant max-HP damage, meaning that eventually, they would die just from the Vessel existing.

However, the boss was also no longer immune to ranged attacks. “Everyone, concentrate on the boss!” he instructed. “We know, we did this before!” Salamander reprimanded as everyone did their assigned jobs.

First was Gnome; she had used her abilities as little as possible while fighting the Imps just to have enough mana to create and maintain shackles on the Vessel's feet. The classic strategy robbed the boss the mobility it would have needed in order to escape the triple attack executed by Sylph, Salamander, and Aclysia. The former two got a respective half of John’s mana, standing to each side of the boss they covered his body in cutting winds and scouring flames. Aclysia, with her **** resistance against elemental attacks, jumped into this unleashed fury without a worry and now took stabs at the boss without any care for more Bloodworms.

Under fire in such a manner, the Vessel quickly died. “Whew,” John breathed out when the boss, and the Bloodworms along with it, disappeared, “Okay, I think we have nailed the strategy this time, good job everyone.” Earlier tries had them spawn Bloodworms on purpose in order to spread their growing out or going for a more grindy style of fight, while they won both of those it hadn’t been nearly as clean as this kill.

“Burst is king it seems,” John mused as five meters in front of him a swirling red and black portal opened, inviting him to the tenth floor. They had declined the previous two possibilities, but now John felt somewhat confident.