Another fire blast hit the skeleton in the legs, but the skeleton kept advancing on Alburet. Straightening back up, Alburet waited for the mob and was barely able to parry the next attack. The mob had way more strength than he did, which meant he could easily be overpowered. Dancing back to give himself some more room, Alburet saw another fire blast catch the creature again in the legs. This time the Guard turned towards Bob and started to advance on the imp, raising its sword as it went.
Alburet stepped forward quickly, thrusting the staff like a spear into the back of the mob's head. He was again rewarded with a critical strike, taking another 32 health off the mob which made it pivot and bring the sword down in a vicious strike aimed at him. His attempted parry was useless against the strength of the mob. He took 48 points of damage and was knocked prone.
The guard slammed its sword down at Alburet, who twisted away to avoid being hit in the head again. The attack connected with his side instead, gashing him again and adding a second bleed. Rolling to try and get some distance, he lost the staff in the process as he got to his feet. Alburet pulled out the dagger, wincing in pain as the two bleeding wounds ticked away. He didn't want to fight a two-handed sword with a dagger but unless he could get back to his staff it was a lost cause.
Two more fire blasts hit the mob, making it turn again to Bob who looked slightly panicked. “I'm starting to run low on mana, master,” the imp squeaked.
Putting the dagger away as he ran, Alburet grabbed the staff and went after the guard again, gauging how close this fight was going to be. The mob was at 330/500 while he was at 180/300 and losing a bit at a time due to the bleeds.
Bob ran from the guard, dodging as best he could and hoping that Alburet would regain the skeleton’s attention. Alburet dug out the health potion and downed it, blinking as his health was restored and the bleed debuffs went away. 230/300 was much better than the previous total and made his pain subside a great deal.
Just as the guard swung at Bob Alburet was able to strike the blade, making it go high. “Run for it until it attacks me again,” Alburet said, stepping back and preparing to attack the mob again.
Bob darted past Alburet in a funny half skip kind of run. The mob ignored Alburet, going after the imp again and as it turned its back on Alburet he slammed the staff right into the unprotected knee of the skeleton. 32 damage and a debuff appeared on the skeleton, Crippled. It began to turn back to Alburet who backed away from it, noticing it was limping on the damaged leg as it followed him.
“Bob, hit it in the head if you can, otherwise go for the legs,” Alburet cried out as he dodged the first attack from the skeleton.
“I can only cast another couple of spells, master,” Bob said as he launched another fire blast at the guard, this time hitting it in the head and taking off 42 life.
“Okay, do what you can,” Alburet said as he tried to parry again, but missed and took the sword to the ribs again which flung him back and into the double doors. “Fuck,” Alburet hissed, knowing he had just run out of room to maneuver.
The next fire blast came in, clipping the skeleton's head and causing it to turn back to Bob as another forty two health came off of it. Breathing a partial sigh of relief, Alburet followed the skeleton but held his attack. 214/500 was what the mob had left while Alburet was sitting at 108/300.
“Last one,” Bob called out, using its last bit of mana to take another 42 health off the guard.
“Dodge as best you can, it will take me a moment to pull it off you,” Alburet called out, hoping he could get two or three attacks in before it turned on him again. “Too bad Retribution wore off before we reached the gate,” he wheezed to himself as he pulled the staff back to hit the mob.
The staff connected with the other knee this time, again doing 32 damage and adding a second counter to the cripple debuff. Its speed was now halved as it limped after Bob. Smiling at the fact they might pull this off after all, Alburet brought the staff around into the first knee again just as the mob was getting close enough to attack the imp, who had paused to wheeze for breath.
That attack was enough to pull aggro back to Alburet, who realized it as the skeleton spun with the sword whistling in an arc as it did. The blow hit him again in the ribs and launched him twenty feet back and causing him to bleed again. Gasping, Alburet climbed to his feet shakily hoping he could land three more attacks before this thing killed him.
The guard limped toward him, its sword cocked back ready to attack when it got into range. Alburet watched it, judging the probable attack and hoped he was right. As it took the last two steps to get into range, Alburet darted forward going into a shoulder roll on the sword side of the skeleton. He hoped the skeleton wouldn't be able to bring the sword straight down as easily as it could have across.
The tumble worked as the skeleton didn't swing, but turned around to reacquire him. Alburet came to his feet and swung the staff, again catching the skeleton in the knees. Alburet hadn't expected the skeleton to turn as quickly as it did with the debuffs though, and found himself flying back again from a kick that did another 5 damage to him. He landed in a lump next to Bob.
“Not very good at this are you?” Bob asked.
“I didn't run out of mana,” Alburet wheezed, getting back to his feet. “Two more hits should do it but that might also land me back at my starting point.”
Bob chuckled, “You can do it.” He stepped back quickly behind Alburet as the skeleton came into range again.
Alburet cursed softly and slammed the staff like a spear into the thing’s skull just before the sword slammed into his ribs, flinging him away again and adding another stack of that damnable bleed. Gasping in pain, Alburet tried to climb to his feet to meet the guard as it trudged towards him.
“You done?” Bob asked with a hint of laughter to its voice. “You’re still alive, come on, be a man.”
Hissing in pain, Alburet got to his feet and glared at the imp, “Next time you can tank.”
Bob shook a finger at him, “Not a good plan. If I tank I can't do this.” With that it launched another fire blast at the skeleton's head, killing it.
Alburet slumped back to the ground and flipped the imp off. “Fucker, how long did you hold that?”
Bob skipped over to Alburet, “I got the mana for another blast right when you landed in your last heap. I do recover mana during combat, just not fast enough to be an endless supply of damage.”
Alburet breathed out in relief as the pain faded away when the last bleed fell off leaving him at 5/300 and he started to regain health. Once he was healed up he stood, “Well, we won. I never would have stood a chance without you. So, even with the snark, thank you.”
Bob dipped a shallow bow with a laugh, “We aim to serve.”
“Let's loot him and see if we can get the gate open.” Alburet crossed to the mob and looted the corpse. The rusty damaged chain mail shirt gave 14 armor, but it was red to him when examined which meant he couldn't equip it. He set it aside and checked the sword, a Pitted Rusty Great Sword which did 25 damage and was also red to him. The only other thing on the mob was a key for the small door in the gate.
As both of the rusty items were only worth a handful of copper he considered leaving them, then smirked. He pulled all the femurs out of his bag and tried to put the blade into the bag. It disappeared just like the bag that belonged to Mary Poppins. Laughing, he put the chain mail inside as well. These at least those were worth coin, unlike the femurs.
“Okay, we got us a key. Let's see what happens,” Alburet said as he walked towards the gate with Bob trailing along behind him.
As he inserted the key and turned the lock he was frozen in place. A look at his bar told him he had a new debuff, Paralyzed. A dark laugh rang out behind him, “So, one of the intakes survived my spell even after all these years. How interesting. Where did you think you were going, exactly?”