LTSV - Harbingers of Change - 16 (Patreon)

Like a video game, the Boss Monster did not seem inclined to leave its zone unless it was chasing something. Even then, it wouldn’t go far. They saw one goblin almost manage to escape it by running far enough away from the exit portal. The Boss still got it by hitting the entire area with a lantern blast, but it didn’t keep chasing past the first cross-street that bordered a building.

The Boss appeared to be unwilling to leave the clear zone surrounding the portal and wouldn’t go past any buildings or into the narrower streets of the ruined city.

The others managed to scrounge up some sheets of plywood and other bits of flat detritus like the metal off a car door or an intact piece of plexiglass. They brought them all to Mira and she set about mass producing a series of magical landmines. She decided to go with lightning strikes since she already had a lightning spell in the elemental dart series, plus pure energy was the hardest element to defend against in her opinion and the Boss monster did not look like it could easily ground electricity. It didn’t touch its beam weapons, so there was a good chance it didn’t have special resistances to its own attack.

Mira was hampered in her participation by her lack of shoes. The Boss Zone was littered with broken glass and, although she floated the idea of making little barrier wards by drawing on her feet, the others weren’t interested in trying the experiment so she got put on top of a nearby building with some cover she could duck under if the Boss attacked her location.

It wasn’t that she was being sidelined; far from it, actually. Bryn hauled a pile of heavy crap up to the roof for her and Mira drew a new spell array onto the ground. She named this one ‘Rail Gun.’

Working quietly, because they were running out of time before the Dungeon Break timer ran out, the team circled around the Boss Zone. Mira watched anxiously as her teammates hung just outside of the Boss’s aggro and pushed the landmine sheets into the zone—except for Alan, who had the highest agility score among them all. He hung back and out of sight in a half ruined building using his stealth ability so that he wouldn’t get attacked when Penny brought in the last round of goblins to attack the boss.

She appeared, right on schedule, leading what had to be at least three packs of goblins. Mira had told her to get as many as she could and Penny had delivered. The number of goblins behind her were even labeled in the System as a [War Band] rather than a [Pack], so that was interesting information. She wondered what the other tiers could possibly be and if it varied between species.

Penny kited the goblins into the Zone and cut them loose. They kept charging forward, even though the thing they’d been chasing had vanished.

Alan dropped out of his hiding place and hurriedly patched the last hole in their ring of landmines.

The Boss took notice of the goblins and zapped them with a lantern blast. This time, there were too many goblins to get them all in one go and there were enough survivors that the goblins’ didn’t flee. Instead, they forgot about looking for Penny and charged at the Boss.

It floated backwards (it was fast when it wanted to be, apparently) and hit them with another lantern. It repeated that ‘retreat and blast’ tactic twice more before the remaining goblins were all dead. With that, they’d neutralized four of its seven available lanterns and it was time to press their attack.

Thank heaven that Cece had found the social tab, otherwise this next bit would have been a lot more difficult. Mira opened the team chat and signaled that she was ready to kick off combat.

[CN: I’m ready]

[BA: ready]

[AT: GTG]

[WH: Ready.]

[RZ: Alright, let’s do it. Go!]

Mira rolled her first projectile, a trash can loaded up with stray bricks and sealed shut, into the Rail Gun circle. The circle lit up as it received its payload and Mira hustled backwards as it began to charge up. She’d loaded the inner section of the array with spells to magnify the mass and velocity of anything she put in there. Once the inner circle turned white, the outer ring of spell formulae where all the good stuff like the IFF protocol and targeting functions were, began to glow.

Mira took cover behind a large defunct HVAC unit and got back into the team feed.

[SM: Rail Gun is firing! Brace yourselves.]

A few seconds later, a low-pitch WHUMP sounded behind her and a white hot ball arced through the sky. It hit the Boss dead on in center mass and Mira felt a wave of hot energy wash backwards from the impact site.

When she peeked out of cover, the Boss had a name plate and a health bar with a chunk taken out of it. Mira hadn’t been close enough for Identify to work on the Boss yet, but entering combat must have overridden that limit because she could now see that it was named [The Lantern Keeper].

“Trite,” she muttered, judgmentally.

The Lantern Keeper started moving in her direction for a few heart-stopping seconds until an eerie green fireball hit it from behind and Mira blew out her breath. The others had managed to regroup and the plan was on.

The Lantern Keeper turned slowly and began to make its laborious way towards the others.

That was Mira’s cue. She slipped out from behind the HVAC unit and over to the Rail Gun array. She went for a particular bit of the spell formula that she’d blocked off from the rest of the circle by the inelegant means of drawing a solid line around that section, sort of like commenting out code in software so the compiler ignored it. She wrapped her sleeve around one finger and delicately wiped out the containment line so that her IFF statements were amended to target the ‘large/solitary/hostile’ creature's primary weapons rather than just the creature itself.

On the ground, Will hit the Lantern Keeper’s body with another fireball and Mira could see it swaying. The Lanterns wobbled in mid air when that happened and Mira blew out her breath. They’d been hoping that the video game logic of this dungeon meant that the Boss Monster was vulnerable to interruption and it looked like their hopes had just come true.

If Will could keep up the interruptions then Mira had time to load the Rail Gun again.

She picked another one of the trashcan payloads. She had four of those to begin with and three remaining. They were the easiest projectiles for her to roll into the array. If combat went on for long enough then she’d need to start putting the car batteries and other random junk they’d found on the street.

Mira loaded the Rail Gun and jumped back under cover as the array primed itself.

The area was rocked with another WHUMP as the trashcan went flying and it nailed one of the lit lanterns, which popped like an exploding light bulb. The Lantern Keeper let out the first sound it had made in all this time, an echoing whale-song sort of cry, and it thrashed back and forth in pain. Its health bar was reduced by another decent chunk, just enough for Mira to confirm that the Lanterns were part of its body and tied to its health..

On the ground, Mira saw her teammates circle around Will as he charged up a higher-level eldritch fireball. Cece enveloped herself and Will in a barrier then, one by one, the other boys lit up with the faint golden glow of ‘Bless.’

Mira’s stomach clenched as she forced herself to both keep watch over the others and also keep working. This was the only part they weren’t sure about; what would happen when the Boss took damage.

She loaded a car battery into the Rain Gun and let it start to prime.

Will released his fireball and it hit the Lantern Keeper in center mass. A sliver of health dropped off its bar, just enough to prove to Mira that attacking it with Rail Gun was going to be the smarter move. The ground team would have to focus on interrupting its attacks and redirecting its attention. The Boss was too big to cut with swords and the Lanterns were too high off the ground for their party to kill it in the normal way. It had to have an Instakill target.

The Rail Gun fired and took out another Lantern. The Lantern Keeper moaned and lost another chunk of health; about the same amount it had when they hit the first Lantern. Either they hadn’t hit the one it wouldn’t fire or they had and it wasn’t special. Mira was willing to bet that this was the first scenario because Will was doing no noticeable damage down there and that wasn’t in keeping with the rest of their experience, so far.

Also, the amount of damage was about the same between the trashcan and the care battery so the health reduction was coming from the destroyed Lantern rather than the quality of the projectile.

She rolled her shoulders and got to work. The first Lanterns were coming off cooldown and she wanted to nail the remaining two before they recharged and before she ended up at risk of losing track of that one Lantern. She loaded a cinderblock into the rail gun.

Will was doing well keeping up with the interrupts, although she’d lost track of them on the ground. The edge of the roof was limiting her field of vision so she had to trust that they were keeping themselves safe.

WHUMP.

The cinderblock went flying and took out the second-to-last lit Lantern. The Lantern Keeper went through its pain animation and Will hit it with a few more fireballs as it trashed.

[ALERT! DUNGEON BREAK IMMINENT!]

Mira hissed through her teeth as she wrangled another car battery into the Rail Gun.

‘Focus on your task,’ she told herself. ‘Don’t think about the System. The important thing is to get out of here alive. We can kill anything that gets out, but not the Boss if it changes behaviors.’

They’d taken out roughly half of its health bar and Mira was banking on that last lit lantern being its Instakill button.

The Rail Gun began to glow and, just as Mira was about to take cover, there was a flash of movement from a nearby rooftop. A figure made a running jump off one of the taller building adjacent to Mira’s. It wasn’t until she got a glimpse of blonde hair and a flashing sword that she realized that Andrei was not only still alive, but he’d been watching them fight.

There was a blur of something on his heels; tiny wings, maybe? Whatever it was had boosted his jumping ability to the point where he was able to leap onto the remaining lit Lantern and pierced it with his sword. Narrow beams of light escaped through the cracks in its glassy surface and then it exploded with a force totally unlike anything they’d experienced so far.

Mira watched the health drain out of the Lantern Keeper’s bar like water and its main body flew apart like cigarette ash as its cowled silhouette fell to the ground.

Andrei landed several yards away, having been knocked clear. She could hear his triumphant woop even from on top of the rooftop.

[NOTICE: The Lantern Keeper has been slain by Hunter Andrei Vale! Individual contributions are being calculated and will be reported upon exiting the Dungeon.]

[The Exit Portal has now opened.]

Oh, that son of a bitch. He’d stolen the final hit!

As much as she liked to tease Adra for being a Kill Thief, she didn’t actually mind it when he did because he was her partner and there wasn’t much difference between them when it came to their end goals.

This, though? This was entirely different.

Note:

It’s official. Andrei is That Guy.