Chapter Five-Hundred Six (Patreon)

It’s Raid Boss time!  I had expected them to take a few more days before gathering up, but seeing them on the march makes it pretty plain they’re already prepared.  Really, it makes sense.  They’ve been preparing this whole time.  All they really needed was time to recover from the party.

A lot more people are coming than I was expecting, but Poe doesn’t feel surprised.  I thought only the ones ready for the Betrayer would show up, but even the adventurers that’ll be staying behind are coming.  A bunch of the more casual delvers are coming, too.

It’s weird hearing them talk about how they hope they can stay in until the end.  Even if I don’t kill my delvers, tons of other dungeons do.  Hearing people be so casual about what’s supposed to be a life and death struggle… kinda drives home the impact I’ve had.  It’s a pretty nice feeling.

It’s also probably a good thing so many are showing up, with what Poe has planned.  I think the delvers have guessed at least vaguely what he’s going to do.  It’s no secret Poe was going to be a raid all about the adds.  My Marshal of Murders and Lord of Unkindnesses is of course going to use a bunch of birds.  Vnarl’s group got a taste of what fighting Poe would be like, way back when they first showed up and got an attitude adjustment.

So with everyone expecting tons of birds, they want to make sure they bring enough people to try to deal with them.  And with my denizens mostly flying, crowding on the canopy isn’t that big of a concern.

Though there are things in their way that weren’t there for Fluffles’ fight.  Huge nests are scattered around the arena, several dozen, in fact.  The delvers give them suspicious looks as they fill the arena, giving the nests as wide a berth as they can, considering how many people are filing in.

The keys are presented and slotted in, and with the final key, the pedestal rumbles and sinks beneath the leaves.  For a moment, silence reigns, before the cawing of my birds starts building.  Slash and Doppler add with a slowly-building song, sounding like something straight out of a Souls game.  The sound of my birds grows louder, but still none are visible, until suddenly they are.

The nests all are shortcuts leading to the bird lair, and my avians spew from the nests in a ceaseless flood.  Their cries make it practically impossible to hear anything but them and the music, Poe playing his first card before he even makes an appearance.

How can they coordinate if they can’t even hear the person beside them?

Poe’s caw slices through the raucous chorus, directing the birds to begin their assault on the delvers!  From my small blackbirds through to my raven harpies, the delvers suddenly find themselves in the thick of a massive brawl with all my flying denizens.  Oh, not all.  The bats aren’t involved.

Despite practically being ambushed to start the raid, the delvers get into gear quickly.  Even the casuals take defensive positions and deal with the birds that come for them.  It’s probably a good thing they came along, too.  With my bird spawner as a lair, and my upgraded denizens, simply overwhelming the delvers may have been an option without the extra participants.

Scratches and cuts appear all over the delvers, with the support classes smoothly moving to keep their friends in fighting form.  A few support classes get taken out quickly, pulled into shortcuts to treat them, and their parties follow swiftly after.  Most groups are good about keeping their squishies safe, though, so the delvers finally manage to organize a response to Poe’s overwhelming opening move.

Casters and ranged classes open up, downing my birds by the hundreds, yet hardly making a dent as the lair works full throttle to replace them.  Arrows and spells fly to meet the endless throng, and melee and shields stand to break the flying tides of black as they get close.

I think the delvers are even more pressed now than they were against the lava fortress.  At least there, they had a chance to breathe.  But with constant reinforcements and Poe’s guidance, the birds fly like a steady river, looping back seamlessly to rejoin the headwaters of the nests and attack again.

It’s pretty quickly clear that turtling up isn’t going to work, and with Poe hidden by the horde of birds, the only real things that stand out are the nests.  A few groups start trudging toward them, inspiring the others to do the same.  It might work, or it might not, but standing there will clearly not get them victory.

The first party to near a nest gets to hear another caw from Poe before they’re engulfed.  A second caw shows them gone, already pulled into shortcuts after taking a beating.  The delvers falter at the sight, at least at first, but delver will isn’t so easily broken.  They continue to aim for the nests, but now they’re mindful of the distance.  A few other groups get too close, but their misfortune shows the way to the others.

Poe can only give one order at a time.  If two groups approach different nests, they are dealt with in turn, not all at once.  Hand signals flash as the groups communicate without needing to hear.  Usually, it’s used when they need to be quiet, but this clearly works, too.  The delvers gather around the nests, just outside the range of the kill order, and slowly inch closer.

Poe’s own caw is the signal for the delvers to rush forward.  The unfortunate target gets swarmed, but that leaves the others to close on the other nests without additional concerns.  The attacks are slightly stronger as they get closer, but that’s simply because they’re at the source of the flood.

Vnarl’s group is the first to actually force their way onto a nest, and I’m not really shocked.  They excel at area attacks, and Mlynda’s tundra wolf only makes them stronger at it.  The looks on their faces when the flow of birds suddenly ceases is priceless.  They were probably expecting to need to fight them off for longer, but holding the objective is all they need, at least for this phase.

The nests are claimed slowly at first, but as the tide turns against Poe, he changes tactics.  Instead of spending birds to try to fight a losing struggle, he lets the delvers slowly take the nests, letting him gather as many forces as he can before they’re all cut off.

It doesn’t take them much longer to claim all the nests, and the delvers cheer even as the black cloud of birds hovers over the entire arena.  Poe caws once more, ominously resonant, and the delvers can hear movement from below the canopy.  Growls, groans  and rumbles grow in volume and number, and soon the delvers are reminded of something.

Poe isn’t limited to only my birds.

Holes open in the canopy and more denizens pour into the arena, these ones decidedly ground-bound.  Bears, undead, elementals, and more swarm in, rushing to try to drive the delvers off the nests.  A few groups falter at the sudden attack and are overwhelmed, releasing the valve to allow more birds to fill the sky.  The delvers desperately move to defend their nests, even as a large hourglass raises from where the key pedestal once sat.

It takes the delvers a few moments before they start to understand what’s happening.  They need to defend the nests, or else Poe will gain more and more birds.  While they can’t know exactly how bad that would be, I’m sure they can imagine.  They learned about phases from the fight with Fluffles, so it’s not a stretch to guess he’s trying to build up for the next one.

They just need to weather this one and not let him reach the tipping point where he really can overwhelm them.  The delvers roar in defiance, refusing to be beaten like this!  The nests with extra groups sally forth, fighting their way through the tougher denizens to reclaim the lost nests.  The ones that don’t have enough to spare, instead hunker down and fight tooth and nail, refusing to give a single inch to Poe’s army.

It’s slow going, but they manage to reclaim the lost nests, and even reinforce the ones that get in danger of falling.  A few fall before they can get there, but they do a great job at limiting how many extra birds Poe gets to have.  He still gets a good 20% increase over the phase, but it could have been so much worse for them.

The final grain of sand falls through the glass, and Poe caws once it does.  The ominous sound reverberates even more than before as he embraces his titles, the flying horde truly looking Unkind and Murderous.  They don’t descend yet, as Poe flaps his wings with force, sending blades of wind to shatter the hourglass, and a follow up twister to catch the debris.  He sends more blades and tornadoes, slicing deep into the canopy and triggering the releases and leaving only the nests for the delvers to stand in.

Where Fluffles used the released floor as moving platforms for the delvers, Poe sucks them into the sky to use as weapons.  He gives one final caw before he joins the birds, diving toward the delvers, stuck in their nests.

The swooping birds all cry doom to the delvers as they descend, psychological warfare without mental affinity.  They might know they’ll survive this, but it’s easy to forget with the sky falling, the ground so far away, and danger blasting through the air.  The final phase isn’t going to be easy.