Mantle of the Gods

This one smelled.

There was a sweetness to the smell almost like rotting fruit. I tried not to breathe through my nose, but that just left the taste of it in my mouth. This was one boss I did not want to farm.

“Ugh!” Aelin exclaimed in the dark, “Why does this one smell???”

“I don’t know.” Talking just moved the smell around in my mouth, “Maybe its breath?”

“REN!” The blonde woman begged. “Hurry up and start this thing!”

“Yuck.” Ether had joined us, “I thought this didn’t happen until later.”

“”You knew this was a thing?!” Irritation laced every word as it sounded like Aelin was trying to wipe the taste out of her mouth.

“I knew that the environments became more complex the deeper you went.” Ether sounded like she was getting closer.

“By the Gods!” That was the first time I’d heard Oz swear. Not that I hadn’t expected it. Of all of them, Aelin was the most girlie and it wouldn’t have shocked me to hear her swear. Probably the only one I couldn’t see using an expletive was Justia. She was too much of a color within the lines type of person.

“It smells bad, we know!” I was going to have to take a long shower after this except… We didn’t have a shower at camp. I was going to have to ask Trent about that because I did not want to wait until we got back to the mainland to get the smell out of my armor.

I pulled the drawstrings on my hood tighter and tucked my head so that I could breathe into my jacket. It made it a little better, but not much.

“Oh sweet… LIGHT!” Ren cut off her expletive to start the fight.

The room lit up and the monster began to rise out of the ground.

“Look At Me!” Ether started off the fight like we had been and charged at the monster.

“Bind!” This thing seemed to have more flexibility, so I didn’t plan on it staying trapped for long and it didn’t.

“Quicken!” Aelin threw the buff at Oz, “Soften!” She pointed at the monster’s neck.

“Dash! Quickdraw!” Oz flashed forward and waited to trigger the next part of her combo until Ren was done.

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

“Earth Slashes!” Oz twirled so that she could hit the same spot one ax after the other, then dance back. With the previous floor bosses, there’d at least been cuts, but against this one, we weren’t so lucky.

One of the big differences between the floor monsters and the boss was that the boss didn’t have any missing pieces. It was almost like it was a monster that had just started the zombification process. Which meant for something like this that had scales instead of skin, there wasn’t a weak spot to target.

“This isn’t going to work as well!” Oz put away her axes and took out the sword.

I started shooting at it, but I might as well have been shooting at a brick wall.

Ether rammed into its face, which knocked it off balance, but we couldn’t really damage it, then it didn’t matter how many opportunities there were to attack it.

I really needed to figure out how to make better use of that spell. Since my guns weren’t doing much, I swapped to my sword and started running.

“DASH!”

I closed the distance and swung. Given that Oz hadn’t made a dent I hadn’t been expecting much, but my sword barely left a scratch on the scales. It tried to swipe at me and I danced backwards. “DASH!”

I had another idea, but I wasn’t so sure how well it would work.

“Hey Ren!” I waved at the other blonde, “Do you still have the spear you were using when we met?”

She looked confused and nodded slowly.

“Can I borrow it?”

Ren pulled the wooden spear out of her CB and handed it to me. It was a generic Tier Zero weapon, which meant that it would do worse against higher level monsters, but I was hoping it would do what I wanted it to.

“Thanks!” I looked back at the boss that was trying to find a way around Ether’s shield. I grabbed the spear with both hands and started running.

“DASH!”

I activated the ability when I got close and used that speed boost to increase the damage the attack would do.

The tip of the spear bit into the boss’s side. It let out a satisfying scream as it arched its neck back. Ether used that moment to ram into its throat, knocking it over.

I tossed the spear at Oz, “Think you can use that?”

The raven haired woman ran at the downed monster and began jabbing it.

“Aim for the holes!” I pointed at Aelin, then at the monster.

The blonde nodded and lifted her bow.

I took my pistol back out. Now I would be able to get some use out of this.