Dungeon at the End of the Universe

Alright, so, Boss monsters are an actual category recognized by the System. And I may have accidentally made one. In fact, based on that prompt asking me to name it, I may have very well created a whole new species.

Okay, sure, why not. I’m sure it’ll be fine. That boon though…

If being able to remake, recreate, or resummon (whatever it’s called) Bosses is a boon I received, it must mean that for normal ones death is permanent. So I either need to figure out how to make them consistently, or think of a way for them to retreat after I deem that the adventurers had defeated it.

Ah, but what am I worrying about this now. I only have the one Boss for now, and it is exempt from this problem.

Speaking of, how’s the fight going?

I take a peek at, what had inadvertently become, the Boss Room and cringe. It’s not looking very good.

The two melee classes, Rampampadam and Dittillapp, are doing their best to keep the Boss occupied while the caster, Prshky, is sending mana bolt after mana bolt at it. But it’s not exactly going great.

With the six arms that it has, it isn’t exactly having trouble dealing with the two of them. And as for the wizard, well, the monster occasionally disengages one limb from the melee and send a caustic blob at him.

At least he’s far enough away that he can dodge, but that also means he’s much less accurate in his attacks.

At this rate they’ll exhaust themselves before they manage to beat it.

Alright then, new plan. How to help them without it being too obvious? Hmm, tough question. I think it requires a bit of assistance.

“Faellen!” I scream into our Bond.

Said fairy startles from its concentration as I pull it away from the projection it has with the delvers.

“I think we have a problem,” I state expectantly.

“Oh really,” it crosses its arms, “and what would that be?”

“I may or may not have made that Boss a little too tough.” After a brief pause, I add, “Even the System acknowledged it as a Boss.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it? You could save them at any time. I’d barely even be any effort for you.”

“Yes, that’s technically the truth. But Dungeons shouldn’t interfere directly. Besides, think of how they’d react.”

“…”

“But they already think of you as their ‘Tutorial guide’. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch that a guide would at least help their charge when they get into trouble, right? We could tell them it’s a one time thing, maybe you could even stop accompanying them. Eh, what do you say?”

Faellen just stared at me. Just when I though it’d be hopeless and was about to offer something more, it spoke.

“I want to design the next couple challenges for them, and also a small favour.”

Filled with relief, I asked, “Sure, what favour?”

“The future kind. And too late to refuse, you already agreed,” it stuck out its tongue at me before quickly flying off, away and towards the fight.

Well, I’m sure it’s going to be fine.

In the meantime, the fight had not progressed much. The knight was breathing heavily, the rogue too to a lesser extent. Around the wizard, many puddles of melted rock bubbled, drastically reducing his dodging options.

And the Boss tree? Almost as healthy as at the start of combat.

I watched for a minute more, waiting for Faelllen to make its way over. Then, I noticed something peculiar.

The ambient mana in the room was much thinner that elsewhere.

In fact, as I watched I could practically see the slime* in the Boss sucking up as much mana as possible to power it.
(*the slime is no longer a distinct part of the Boss after it became a Boss. It’s more of an organ now, but for ease of reading it’s still referred to as a slime here)

What, then, would happen should the mana run dry?

Sure, I shouldn’t interfere with my adventurers. But who could blame me if I simply redirected some mana from my Dungeon to more important projects? It wouldn’t be my fault if that caused a monster to starve.

And it wouldn’t even starve! It’d enter more of a, let’s say, hibernating mode where the flesh returned to its wooden form.

Yes, that is what I’ll do.

I put all the might of my Control to bear, shifting massive rivers of mana out of the way to the room. There’s still some leftover inside, but the Boss will use it up soon enough.

Just then, Faellen arrives. Seeing the exhausted forms of the melee combatants, it flies as close as possible and begins healing them. It’s not something I’ve seen it do before, but fae magic is just strange in general. Who knows if it even had the capability to do so before this moment.

With the boost in energy granted to them, they get back to fighting with much fervour.

Rampampadam grabs a branch attacking her with both of her tentacle hands, while Dittillapp uses their pincer-claw hands to cut said branch. The result is not quite as smooth as they’d like, but the Boss looses some mobility in it anyway. Maybe a few more of such manoeuvres and the entire arm-branch will come off.

Faellen, in the meantime, floats over to Prshky and lays a hand on his shoulder.

Out of nowhere, his next mana bolt swells to triple its usual size. Then it shifts and changes from into an actual spear and shoots forward far faster than before.

Prshky collapses to the ground, completely spent, just as the spear hits one of the Boss’s arm-branches and tears the entire thing off.

The Boss pauses for a brief second, silently crying out in pain. Unfortunately for the trio of Sipalians, the torn off arm doesn't appear to want to stay that way. The flesh at its base begins to convulse and grow, lengthening into a new branch.

And then the mana runs dry. Only Faellen can feel it directly, but even the others get a vague feeling of something changing.

The Boss stops moving, the regrowing arm stops convulsing, and then its entire body stiffens, returning to its wooden form.