Mantle of the Gods

Gesai took us straight to the dungeon.

No one was really talking, but we also weren’t having a problem with the zombie in each room either. Gesai took us on a winding path that was off the map I had, then backtracked us to the main path to the boss room. I assumed we were doing a little bit of exploring while we had extra time.

Once we were at the boss door, we took a small break.

“This boss is similar to the one on the first floor, except it is a wolf and has a bone collar around its neck.” Gesai looked at us, “Fray was able to cut through the collar, but she has a sword that’s specifically crafted to be effective against zombies.” She turned to Oz, “You’ll probably have to destroy the crystal, which is in its heart.”

“Ether, keep its attention on you, Aelin, buffs and ranged support. Atlas, try to take out a leg. It’s faster than the Horned Bear, so slowing it down will help the team a lot.” She looked at the last member of our party, “Ren, try to keep most of the buffs up so that Aelin can focus on shooting.” She eyed us all. “Its charged move is a rush attack, so it’s just like the last one, just a little faster and better armored. Any questions?” When none of us said anything, She pointed at the door. “Then let’s do this so we can talk about what happened earlier and get you ready for tonight.”

I got up and walked through the door. I could feel her eyes on me, but I couldn’t tell what the emotion she was trying to convey was.

It didn’t take long for the others to get inside.

“LIGHT!” Ren came in last so she’d know it was okay to start the fight.

The boss monster slowly began to come out of the spongy ground.

Maybe it was because we’d just done nine of the Horned Bears, but we fell into the attack pattern we’d been using.

“Look At Me!” Ether started moving as fast as she could.

“Bind!” With the Horned Bears we hadn’t worried about keeping them in one place, but I assumed that this thing we’d want to try to keep it in one place. Vines wrapped around the body. It wasn’t going to take it long to chew them off, but it would at least make it easier for Oz to hit.

“Quicken!” Aelin threw the buff at Oz, “Soften!” She pointed at the collar.

“Dash! Quickdraw!” Oz flashed forward using her skill to get her axes into her hands.

“Hone Weapons!” Ren targeted Oz’s weapons.

“Earth Slashes!” Oz had figured out that she could combo from quickdraw into an Earth Slash by timing the attack for when she was mid-swing with the quickdraw.

Her axes bit into the bone collar one after the other. I switched to my pistol as she set up for another run at it.

While the buff and debuff were still up, Aelin switched to her bow and Ren used her ring.

It took us about twenty minutes to take it down, which was about the same time as the first floor boss.

“What’d we get?” Ether put her shield away.

“Bone Armor.” Oz held the white armor up. It looked like a lot of bones tied together perpendicularly. “It’s for a Tank.”

“Save it for Mitchel when he hits three?” Ren started heading towards the exit.

Ether nodded, “I think my metal armor is better.” She pounded on her chest.

Oz stored it in her CB, “Sounds like a plan.”

Gesai walked in, “That looked smooth…” She looked at each of us, “Like you’ve done it a dozen times.”

“I guess we just work that well together.” I smiled as I wrapped my arm around Ether.

The older woman didn’t look convinced, but she motioned at the exit, “Let’s get out of here so we can prepare you for your ‘game’.”