Tiny switched out after a minute, and the Necromancer stopped laughing. He glared down at them with spittle falling from his lips, “You still flail away at me. Do you not see how the Master has blessed me?”
Gerald huffed, “Joy. A monologuing boss. That’s so original.”
“Now you will see the power the Master has bestowed upon me!” A dark cloud started to gather around the Necromancer as he spoke in a harsh, guttural tongue.
Bob went running across the room with his skipping run and grabbed the bell pull hard, using his whole body to tug on it. The bell rang once as Bob dangled from the rope, “That’s a nope!” Bob laughed as he let go of the rope and dropped to the floor.
“Well done, Bob,” Gerald called out as the energy vanished from around the Necromancer, who began raving furiously.
“How dare you, you filthy little Infernal!” The foot of the Necromancer snapped out, kicking Bob. Bob went flying across the room, impacting the wall in a spray of red mist. “Die! Die! Die!”
Alburet blinked as his minion was instantly killed, “What the fuck?”
“Bob!” Tiny roared, redoubling his attacks on the Necromancer.
The Necromancer seemed to revel in the fact that he’d killed someone, even as his health plummeted under the group’s attacks, “Yes, yes! Death, all must embrace Death.”
Tiny and Gerald were the only ones taking damage from the arms, which they were able to partially mitigate with their shields. Alburet’s healing spell was keeping both Tinys alive, but they weren’t holding up quite as well as Gerald was.
They continued whittling away the health of the boss. Alburet frowned as he watched the life of the mob slowly ebb away under the onslaught. It had a ridiculous amount of health. Exactly one minute from last time, the boss started gathering energy again. Tiny Jr., who had just switched out with his original body, slid over and yanked on the bell rope.
“How dare you, you filthy little Infernal!” The foot of the Necromancer snapped out again, kicking Tiny Jr and sending him flying across the room to crash into the wall with a squishing sound. “Die! Die! Die!”
Tiny was thrown back into the far wall where he was also killed. “Okay, interrupting the spell looks like an instant kill.” Gerald called out as he blocked another attack. “Which means a damage race normally.”
Karen slammed her blades into the fleshy mass before her again and again. “Why is it taking us so long then? Our DPS output is really good for our level.”
“Maybe it’s based on the total health of the group that starts the fight?” Fluff speculated.
“If it takes into account the minions, that would explain why it seems so large,” Marysue added from the far corner.
They lapsed back into silence, focusing on the damaging Necromancer, whittling him down. They got him to 10% life just before the third minute came up and the Necromancer started casting again.
Stacia pulled the bell rope, but this time the spell wasn’t interrupted. Gerald tried a stun to no effect, even as the arms continued to pummel at him and Tiny. Tiny was looking rough, since he didn’t have a Copy to switch out with anymore.
“What the hell? Why didn’t it work?” Karen snarled.
The blackness flooded out from the Necromancer, covering the whole room and their life began to drop by 2% every second. “Burn it, use everything you have,” Gerald called out as he realized the end phase for the boss was a straight burn.
They went all out with, using every ability they had available. Fluff Raged, Karen used her Coup de Grace and Alburet swung his axe into the boss again and again. Their health ticked steadily away, in spite of Marysue’s best efforts to heal them. Tiny went down, the addition of the spell’s damage proving too much. The boss shifted his attacks on that side to Alburet.
“Fuck,” Alburet cried out as half his life vanished to the two pummeling fists and the spell.
Gerald cursed, “This isn’t going to end well, damn it.”
Sure enough, Alburet died after another couple of seconds, causing Stacia to vanish. The Necromancer turned on Karen and Fluff with one set of arms.
A few seconds later the group was at the entrance, having failed at 3% of the boss’s life. “Well, that fucking sucks donkey dick,” Karen snarled.
“I think it’s like the Passionate Constrictor,” Marysue put in. “The minions might count towards its life total.”
“Okay. We go again?” Alburet asked as he stood up. “Go into his room without the minions, then summon them after the fight kicks off?”
“Like we did with the Constrictor,” Gerald nodded.
The tactic worked, and the final phase of the boss fight went off without a hitch. When the loot was distributed, Alburet got a ring with 10 Wisdom to replace his older one, which was getting close to breaking. “Good to know the health pool of the boss is based on the total number of people in the room, including minions.”
“That’s twice we’ve run into that and going in without minions has worked for us,” Karen added. “I wonder if they’ll change up that mechanic with the next patch.”
“I don’t see why they would. It penalizes people who don’t think to try it, but rewards those who do,” Gerald shrugged. “Either way, it’s close to lunch. Let’s grab a bite then go see about the Elven Lands.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Turning in the quests for the Blighted Hills got them each another level. They went back to Stormguard for lunch at Giardino’s, then headed over to the Portal Guild. They went to the receptionist’s desk to find out where to find the portal they wanted.
“Excuse me, miss,” Alburet addressed the young woman behind the desk, “we’re looking for the portal to the Elven lands.”
“A full group of you?” she asked, looking at the others with him. When Alburet assured her that they were, she pointed to a set of stairs behind her desk that led downward. “Take that set of stairs.”
They thanked her and descended one floor to find three archways in the room beyond the stairs, one for each other continent, labeled by capital city. Fluff pointed out the right-hand arch, “Brightgrove.”
“Bunker is the Dwarf one?” Karen asked.
Nodding, Fluff pointed to the last one, “Which leaves Wildwood, the Lunari capital.”
“Well, off to Brightgrove we go, then,” Alburet said, ushering them to the right portal. He checked the cost with pursed lips; fifty gold was not cheap. The guild discount brought the price down to twenty-five gold, which was still a decent amount of money.
Alburet looked around with interest after he stepped through the portal. He looked up, and his jaw dropped. “Wow,” he uttered, staring at the soaring trees above him. The trees were massive, each trunk easily a hundred feet across. Their bark was smooth except for the runes etched into them.
Karen grinned like a maniac, “The whole city is up there?” Her eyes tracked the massive platforms built around each tree, along with the bridges that connected the platforms.
“Beautiful,” Marysue said, her eyes wide. “I want a home here.”
“I will see what we can do,” Gerald said as he looked over at her with a fond smile, before turning his gaze upward like the others.
“There are stairs are to the right, and the elevator is to the left,” Fluff told them. “It costs a gold to ride the elevator.”
“Elevator, please,” Alburet said as he pulled his gaze away from the trees above him. “That’s a lot of steps to climb.”
They followed Fluff to the pair of elevators situated at the base of one of the giant trees. “There are three other elevators scattered around the city,” she told them. “If the city is attacked, the elevators are raised, preventing enemies from reaching the buildings. Four guards are stationed at each elevator.”