John, Nia and Lydia were staring down at the Sicklebrood Matriarch. They had been doing so for about four minutes already, using the remaining time on the flight buff to stay out of range. Simply waiting for her chance to strike, the boss sat at the entrance of the cave. Following her programmed behaviour, she had been coerced to come outside by the Arcana Strike that John had thrown up the second he had gotten there.

Through careful planning, he had arrived in front of the cave with an almost full mana bar. Now they were playing a game of ‘how long can it charge?’. This was the part of the plan they had the least knowledge about. They had only gotten to this point two times previously. During the first, they had managed to defeat the Titanturtle, but didn’t get the Ravenstorm kited over in time. During the second, the party in charge of finishing up the Titanturtle had wiped. Because they were fighting all the bosses at once, it only counted as a victory if they actually beat all three.

While the flight buff would protect them from the Matriarch for a while longer, the actual menace now appeared on the battlefield. Having hatched inside the cave, a Sickleman came strolling out. Dodging its projectiles for several minutes would be impossible for them. Which was why Nia was there.

The pariah hovered down at a quick pace, needing to move before the Sickleman grew out his first spear. It wasn’t a close race; the blonde had a whole five minutes to prepare herself, after all. “[Intimidation],” she spoke a word whose sound felt inverted. Rather than reaching John’s ears, it was drawn from his mind, cutting a hole in his sensemaking that created the meaning in the negative. All of that was already an unpleasant experience, like someone sticking a vacuum cleaner in his ear, but the concentrated alien aura that followed directly thereafter was even worse.

Distantly, John heard the croaking, cawing meow of the Nia’s Nevr’est. The air around her became fuzzy and stretched, as if he was looking through a blurry fish-eye lens. The several metres between him and the creature made it barely acceptable. He breathed lighter when Nia moved even further away, following the backing off monsters on the ground. The Sickleman and the Matriarch stepped back until they hit the edge of the cave, at which point their instilled behaviour clashed with their discomfort and they stayed where they were, hissing and spitting.

No matter how close to sapience they were, the monsters were still instinct driven creatures, unable to reason themselves into attacking because of their fear. Through this application of Nia’s aura, the party won another few precious minutes. John looked north, away from the stalemate and towards the approaching thunderstorm. Sylph had managed to coerce the Ravenstorm to follow her and was on her way. If they timed everything correctly, she would arrive exactly when Nia could no longer sustain her crowd control.

Then, he looked further than that, changing his focus to the lake beyond the horizon.

__________________________________________________________________________

Jack’s fist crashed into a wall of crystal. During the time his real body had set everything up at the third boss, the group of him, Aclysia, Salamander, Undine, Siena, Rave and Metra had been carving their way through the innards of the Titanturtle. Not a lifeform in the traditional sense, the creature still had veins. They were large tunnels, partially filled with crystal formations, through which energy streamed. To get through, they had to smash those crystals. Occasionally, this would cause energy blobs to form, effectively the anti-bodies of this system. They were more cumbersome to defeat than actually threatening. Obstacles, not enemies.

This was the fifth time they managed to get in here and they had learned most of the layout by now. The first three attempts had been largely dedicated to them taking unnecessarily long routes. The fourth had been the only kill so far. Jack was confident they could repeat that.

Recognizing the crystal formation ahead, the Gamer’s double gave a signal, and Aclysia took the lead. The weaponized maid rushed through the crystals, trampling them down in her path and bursting into the room behind a final wall. Immediately, a white shockwave spread out from her. Master’s Shield taunted the thousands of tiny blobs that covered the floor, causing them to all rush to her position. More of them fell from the ceiling, hiding the white-haired tank from view.

Salamander entered the room next, accompanied by a wave of fire that eradicated the weak enemies. Then, the rest of the party followed and entered the heart chamber.

It was a cone shaped room, with a rounded tip. Several crystal lines reached out of veins at several levels of height, all of them connecting to a milky gemstone in the middle. Larger than a person, the heart of the Titanturtle’s unrefined surface pulsed audibly. Magical light swelled and receded, bringing the room phases of bright illumination and near darkness. The granite walls were covered in yet more of the tiny antibodies, all of them starting to move the second they got in. Their entrance manoeuvre had bought them the space they needed to get proper footing.

“We’re rushing to the final phase! Salamander, you protect Undine, the rest of us focus on the crystal veins,” he declared his plans. Although the tiny antibody slimes were annoying, they were only harmful if they got prolonged contact with a person. Best to conserve their resources while letting Salamander clear them in an effective way. “Siena, stay close to Salamander for the transition.”

Once Salamander had burned away most of the slimes, they got to work. It was an intense but straightforward affair. Through flying, teleportation and sheer grit, each of them hammered away at the crystal veins. Jack was doing the least of it, not having the Strength required to just hack through these things as Metra or Aclysia did. The pulsing and Salamander’s flames gave unsteady light to the room, but the Gamer would have found his way if it was completely dark anyway. A few minutes in this chamber and he had created a complete map of its layout.

As quickly as they could, they had shattered all of the veins, and the gemstone fell to the ground with a massive clunk, the last bits of crystal sticking to it forming a reactive armour to protect it from the fall. The same thing would have happened had they tried to strike it without all of the veins destroyed. The walls secreted more antibodies, a last struggle of the boss’ body to defend against the invaders. If they reached the gemstone, they would harden into a protective armour. The light dimmed away with the last pulse.

Siena and Salamander combined.

Heat began to rise on every surface of the chamber as Shadowflame used her Unleash. Any surface engulfed in shadow in an area around her became the fuel for lightless fire. Hissing sounds, like water hitting the surface of a hot stove, were the only confirmation they had that this was working. All of the new antibodies, quite dangerous in this absolute darkness, were getting spawn-killed. The party, thanks to the Guild Perk that turned friendly fire off, was getting away without any harm. They even had time to heal.

Then the light returned to the room. The heart of the Titanturtle suddenly glowed, brighter than ever before and no longer pulsing. Arms and legs burst out of the blurry white crystal and it rose up as a new golem. When it stood, a turtle-like head formed at the upper edge of the round torso, roaring. Roaring as electricity rushed out of the crystal stumps at the walls, remaining energy from the Ravenstorm that still pulsed through the Titanturtle. Some of it unloaded in area of effect attacks, several striking members of the party. More of them struck the Titanturtle Heartgolem and supercharged it just as they had done with the spire golems above.

Shadowflame split into Siena and Salamander, her purpose fulfilled. The lightning strikes faded, for the most part. Some of the stumps still crackled and occasionally there would be discharges between two of them. Jack’s job was now to keep a view on those things while the real fighters of the party did their thing.

The boss looked uncomfortably similar to Golem from the Pokémon games, except it was made out of crystal and didn’t need to roll up into a ball to attack. Instead, it charged with a speed and power that overcame Metra at her peak fury.

Taking on one arm each, Aclysia and Metra were barely able to stop the charge of the monster, but not able to hold their ground as it continued to press. Smashing both of them into the floor, the boss turned to Siena after the moonshade elemental’s claws had scratched its back, cutting four deep trenches into it.

Threatening as it was physically, the final phase of the boss was a glass cannon with no mechanics of its own. It was a DPS check, a final phase designed only to test how much power they successfully brought past the management phases of the Titanturtle boss fight. As long as they kept going, they could beat it. The last difficulty, the antibody armour, had been removed. Now it was just damaging it while not dying, no great plans.

Which was easier said than done.

____________________________________________________________________

“I am here, I am here, this is getting difficult, very, very difficult!” Sylph blabbered as she darted past John and Lydia. Her left arm was gone, leaving a trail of pale green energy particles to tumble from the stump. “I got hurt, I am hurt, I want cuddles after thi- LEFT, LEFT!” she shouted, John and Lydia jumping to the side as a thunderbolt fell where they had just stood. Their flight buff had run out now, forcing them to stand on top of the cliff.

“You will have all the cuddles you want once we get done here,” John promised and looked up at the Ravenstorm. If the four-winged boss had been smart, it would have just remained up there and blasted lightning at them until it won. Luckily, diving was part of its programming. All John had to do was wait until the Ravenstorm descended on them and then pray that the Arcana Strike did enough damage to finish it and the Sicklebrood Matriarch off in one go.

The problem was that they were at the end of the things they had experience with. They had never gotten this far. From there on out, most of it all would be improvisation.

“John!” Nia raised her voice in urgency, barely more present than a ghost. It was all the signal they needed. The alien aura vanished from the battlefield. A moment of silence followed. Then the now two Sicklemen and the Matriarch realized what had happened and stormed forwards with ravenous intent.

Tapped of all resources, all Nia could do was run towards them. She tried to dodge underneath a swipe, tickle out a few extra seconds. Exhausted and failure prone, she slipped up immediately. One of the Sicklemen grabbed her with both of its claws and tried to ram its spider-fangs into her head. She vanished before the blow truly connected.

“Lydia!” John shouted, as the Matriarch came climbing up the cliffside at an absurd pace. The two Sicklemen down below both pulled spears from their shoulders and launched them. John used Shifting Momentum to teleport out of the way. That was one free instance of damage avoidance. He had two more teleportation stacks and then he would have to expend mana to keep up. Although he hadn’t fought for quite a while, his mana bar was practically tapped. All of it went to support the group fighting the Titanturtle, especially Undine.

He didn’t have much of a choice, it was either victories everywhere or victories nowhere.

“I got it!” Lydia shouted, ripping both of her hands up and then bringing them down with force. Thick nails that she had buried deep into the edge of the cliff were now driven deep enough to cause the stone to splinter off. Falling rubble would have done nothing to the Matriarch, but losing the stone under her claws at least made her fall back down, buying them another few precious seconds.

‘Come on, dive!’ John thought, staring up at the Ravenstorm circling above.

A pained scream ripped John back into reality, as Lydia stumbled forwards several steps, a Sickleman spear having just hit her on the back of her shoulder. With disbelief in his eyes, he turned around, seeing a whole host of Sickleman approaching their location.

“The Sickleman cluster…” he whispered and quickly looked over to the other side of the valley, where yet more of them took position. They didn’t just have to deal with the spawns from the cave, but the extra spawns in the north and south corners had now joined them as well, triggered into action by something. They hadn’t known this, they couldn’t have known this, and now over a dozen Sickleman readied their spears.

“Concentrate on dodging,” Lydia instructed him before he could hatch a plan, then she started running.

John had no idea what she was planning to do. With the spear lodged in her shoulder, her steps were far from graceful. Whatever it was, he had to trust that her spontaneous idea would work out, and started running. He couldn’t stay on top of the cliff, that would have put him at melee range with several Sicklemen, so he followed Lydia, both of them running towards the edge.

The spears came flying. One hit John mid-air, but was deflected by Particle Skin, eating up his remaining mana. Everything else, he managed to dodge by teleporting the last ten metres of his fall and landing earlier than any of them could have aimed for. Turning around, he just barely saw Lydia jump past the Matriarch. The boss had already been back up most of the cliff.

Penetrating the queen of steel with her two front limbs, the spider-like monstrosity let out a series of triumphant clicking sounds. Then Lydia’s aura flared up. Her lips were red, redder than usual, red with blood, as she smiled and delivered a kick to the boss’ chest. Something short of a Seismic Step caused a visible blast on the other side of the Matriarch’s chest. Yet, the creature sounded more inconvenienced than hurt, as both of them fell. Thin wires glistened in the few sunrays that drifted over the horizon. Then Lydia was defeated by a bite mid-air, leaving only John and Sylph.

‘RAVENSTORM INCOMING!’ the thunderstorm elemental gave the needed news just as the Sicklemen readied their second round of spears. Unbothered by the potential of being hit by her brood, either trusting their aim or simply too enraged to care, the Matriarch herself charged at John. The Ravenstorm behind him, the Matriarch in front of him and the Sickleman all aiming from above. Yet the Gamer was smirking.