Rune Seeker

“Should we be nervous?” Seena asked, already sounding worried.

“We’re going to use Nivian’s plan,” Hiral said.

“Eloquent and Enraged?” Wule asked.

“Then that’s not really your plan, now, is it?” Yanily asked at the same time.

“And we’re not going to aim at the head,” Hiral went on. “I think its weak spot is its heart. We need to hit its chest with our strongest attacks before it has a chance to regenerate.”

“Oh, is that all?” Seeyela asked, scoring another double-strike with her daggers and then bamf’ing away from a backhand swing at her.

“That’s all,” Hiral said. “You all with me?”

“Boss?” Nivian asked.

“Don’t have any better ideas, really,” Seena said. “When?”

“Of course there is,” Seena said under her breath.

“I’ll keep it busy,” Nivian mumbled, charging back in to exchange blows with the Mid-Boss.

“What are we testing?” Seeyela asked, perched on the edge of the second level, solar energy swirling around her.

Is that what Cycling looks like? That’s a question for later.

“Are your venoms still active?” Hiral asked.

“Suppressed, but there’s stacks of it just waiting to eat that thing alive,” Seeyela said. “Er, eat it undead? Yuck. Whatever. The venom is still in its system.”

“Which means it doesn’t have a way to completely neutralize it. Just put it somewhere so it doesn’t do damage.”

“And?” Seeyela asked.

“And we need to open it up and see what happens,” Hiral said to Left. “She put a lot of venom in its right shoulder, didn’t she?”

“A lot,” Left said.

“Hit it with the Dagger of Sath, see what happens,” Hiral said, and the double ran off with a nod. Then, while Left got into position, Hiral took aim with one RHC and hit it with a few Distracting Shots. “When it’s go-time, we’ll need to keep it in one place, and preferably without a way to protect its chest. Ideas?”

“I can’t hit as hard as”—Nivian blocked another titanic blow from the Mid-Boss—"you guys. I’ll hold one of the arms back.”

“Can you do that?” Yanily asked, whirling around the back of the undead, his spear never stopping as he cut, lashed, and stabbed.

“I’m getting a stacking buff every time I”—another GONG into his shield—“block one of his attacks. I’ll hold one.”

“I’ll get the other,” Wule said.

“No offense, but how are your scrawny arms going to hold this thing back?” Nivian asked, lashing across the Mid-Boss’s chest with his whip.

“Unlocked a long cooldown on the rod,” Wule said. “This is the perfect time for it, though it’ll only hold a few seconds.”

“Should be enough once we’re all set up,” Hiral said, spotting Left up on the second floor.

A second later, the double leapt off, a long purple stream hanging behind him, to drive his dagger deep into the monster’s shoulder. The trailing water rushed ahead at the contact, plunging into the hilt of the dagger and then straight out of the blade with explosive results.

Black ichor erupted out of the bursting wound along with the familiar green of the Ghost-Web Venom. But would it be enough to…?

The monster roared and spun on Left, one hand going to its shoulder while the other swiped at the double. While part of Hiral worried for his friend, he had to trust in his ability, and he focused on the undead’s health bar as it went from yellow to green. Even more telling, it dropped more than forty percent from the single hit, and the wound in the ruined shoulder hadn’t healed yet.

“Phase two,” Hiral said. “Yanily, hit that same shoulder.”

“Me?” Yanily asked, the twelve-foot giant smashing through another wall as it chased after Left, stones and thick wooden braces shattering like cheap ceramic.

“Yan, c’mon,” Seena said, her own Cinder+ scoring hits on the wounded shoulder. More drops of the health bar… It was working!

“Fine!” Yanily said, dashing to the side before rushing in.

“Don’t use Skyfall!” Hiral said quickly. “Save the cooldown!”

“Now you tell me,” Yanily said, stutter-stepping and leaping into the air with a spinning flourish. It wasn’t his big move, but lightning spun around him like a sawblade—a fainter, second one also appearing—and he carved into the monster’s shoulder.

Another dramatic drop of its health, but then the green turned back to yellow, and the bar quickly began refilling.

“Fall back,” Seena ordered.

Yanily and Left darted away while Nivian lashed out once, twice, three times to get the behemoth’s attention back on him.

Even as Hiral watched, the wound in the shoulder reknit, the green of the remaining venom getting sucked back into one specific place before the flesh healed over. In mere seconds, the Mid-Boss was back at full health.

“Do we even need to risk using Eloquent and Enraged?” Seena asked. “Couldn’t we just do the same thing?”

“If this thing is anything like the Lady of the Web, it’s got a second health bar underneath the yellow one,” Hiral said, peppering the Mid-Boss with Distracting Shots the whole time. “We hit it hard, at least seventy percent of its health, but we need to do almost triple that. We’re going to need our big buffs.”

“Which means, one way or another, the fight will be over in three minutes,” Seena said.

“I like our odds,” Yanily said, darting in and scoring a quick pair of hits against the undead’s arm.

“Me too,” Nivian said. “We can do this.”

“Any objections?” Seena asked, and nobody spoke up. “Okay, Hiral, spell it out for us. What do we need to do?”

“First, Seeyela needs to dump a lot of venom into the center of its chest,” Hiral said. “As much or more than what was in the shoulder. We had about ten seconds from when Left hit it to when the wounds started healing. If more venom buys us even an extra second—or more damage—that’s a big win. Next, we need to make sure our big cooldowns are ready to go.”

“I’m going to need to use my two biggest cooldowns to do what you want,” Seeyela said.

“That’s okay—your part is delivering the venom,” Hiral said. “Leave the rest to us. Uh, though I will need one tricky portal from you, so save enough for that.”

“Oh, that sounds reckless,” Seena said, and Hiral could almost feel her rubbing the bridge of her nose over the party chat.

“Not reckless, just amazing,” Hiral said.

“Even more worried now,” Seena said.

“Can we just kill this thing before it breaks my new shield?” Nivian asked, taking a brutal one-two combo, then leaping back to avoid a double-overhand SMASH. A wave of force washed out in a wave from the center of impact, shattering what little was left of the floor and shaking buildings all around.

Creaaaaak. Everything around them rattled and swayed as support beams bent to almost breaking, while thumb-thick cracks raced up the walls. Then the whole building around them split like a torn dress, the roof ripping apart to reveal the dark, night sky. Rain poured through the opening in an instant.

“I don’t know if this place can even last three minutes,” Wule said.

“Then let’s do this,” Seena said, solar energy Cycling around her as well. “Sis, be careful. The rest of you, hold off on the big buffs until Hiral gives the word. And Yan, don’t you dare ask what the word is.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Seeyela said, solar energy blasting out of her as she activated Eloquent and Enraged, the green glow of luminescent roots shining through her skin and armor. Another pulse of energy, and both her daggers shone like sickly green stars in her hands, the air itself rotting around them. One more pulse—bamf—andshe vanished from the ledge to appear beside the giant.

A chord sounded in Hiral’s ear as the woman struck out, driving a blade into its knee, then twisting around as dark, sinister music seemed to reverberate from the very ground. She needled the behemoth’s back, more notes punctuating each strike. Bamf. She vanished from the ground to land lightly on its back. Two more stabs, and she was gone again as the monster reached for her, only to appear standing on its bicep.

Twin slashes sprayed black ichor to both sides. Bamf. She disappeared as the monster’s other hand came over to grasp at empty air. Down on the ground again, she drove both daggers up and into the behemoth’s groin with a discordant tone like a church bell shattering.

Hiral couldn’t stop the involuntary wince, but it hardly seemed to faze the Mid-Boss, and Seeyela bamf’daway as both arms swung down to try to crush her in a bearhug. She appeared in the air right above them, like she knew exactly what the monster would do, both her daggers blazing with energy. The second her feet landed on the monster’s forearms, solar energy flooded out of her into her daggers, and she drove them hard into the center of its chest.

The green coronas of energy around her daggers dove straight into the wounds, the flesh and scales around her blades turning sickly green in a heartbeat. So powerful was the venom that the monster started dissolving, but a second later, the terrible venom got pulled into a concentrated point. Not waiting for the behemoth to get a hold of her—smarter than Hiral—Seeyela bamf’daway to appear back on the ledge where she’d started.

“Done,” she said, breathing heavy. “What’s next?”

“Now it’s our turn,” Hiral said. “Use your buffs. As soon as Nivian and Wule have it contained, hit it with everything you have. Left, Right, Yanily, Seena, then me.”

“You sure you want to go after me?” Seena asked. “It’s going to be hot.”

“I’m counting on it,” Hiral said. “Since it’ll mean nobody else will be around.”

“Take this,” Wule said, and the fiery ball floating around his head shot over to circle Hiral.

You have been buffed by Hydra’s Resistance (Fire).

Damage taken from fire and heat-related attacks is reduced by 50%.

Duration: Until canceled by source.

“Thanks,” Hiral said. “Seeyela, you ready?”

“Sure, but I don’t know what I need to do,” she said.

“You will,” Hiral said at the same time he activated Eloquent and Enraged. Yellow light poured out of the white double helix patterned across his Second-Skin of Ur’Thul, and strength flooded his body.

Self-Buff: Eloquent has activated.

All mental attributes increased by 50% for 180 seconds.

Self-Buff: Enraged has activated.

All physical attributes increased by 50% for 180 seconds.

The rain seemed to slow all around Hiral as his Atn shot up to more than 150, while his Dex passed 170. Every raindrop that fell against him seemed to tell him an entire story about where it’d been, and his eyes plotted him a path between the drops if he needed it.

Four other waves of solar energy told him the rest of the party had used their self-buffs as well, and he glanced around to see them each standing within columns of green light.

“Consider this the shoulder-tap,” Seena said into the party chat, and Nivian instantly activated his movement skill.

Empowered by the impressive self-buffs, Nivian barely blurred before he appeared on the right side of the Mid-Boss, his vambrace-wrapped arm snagging the monster’s wrist. The huge beast had over 200 Str, but with his buffs and gear, Nivian had to be around the same. That, combined with the thick roots anchoring him to the ground, made even the behemoth’s eyes widen when it couldn’t pull its arm free from the tank’s grasp.

The undead screamed and cocked its left arm back, hand clenching into a fist to splatter Nivian all over three city blocks.

A column of unbelievably frigid cold shot up from the ground, rain and air freezing in a twenty-foot circle all the way to the roof of the building—and completely encasing the monster’s arm from the bicep down.

The brute once again looked surprised it couldn’t move that arm either, but then its head twisted forward at movement.

Even without Eloquent and Enraged, Left and Right crisscrossed as they dashed in, purple flame trailing the fist of one and a long, liquid stream following the other. Left, with a flap of his Wing of Anella, shot ahead, spinning in the air as he leapt to lengthen the trail from his Dagger of Sath, then lunged for the undead’s chest.

With the monster completely unable to defend itself, the blade drove all the way up to the hilt, but the stream didn’t immediately catch up like Hiral expected.

Instead, Right’s fist burst in a comet-like brilliance that shook the air, and he drove it straight into the pommel of the dagger.

WHAAAAM! The impact felt like it should’ve hurled the undead, Nivian, and the whole column of ice halfway across the city, but Right had somehow condensed all of the energy of his punch into a focused line. Everything hit the dagger and pushed it straight into the chest—shattering ribs immediately around it—and then the dagger’s stream rushed to catch up. WHOMP. The chest burst out in a spray of black ichor and green venom.

Gone was the yellow health bar, instantly replaced by a sickly green bar already down to twenty percent.

“Yan!” Seena shouted, clawing across in front of herself with one hand while huge fireballs grew in her other hand. The projectiles, which were usually the size of grapefruits, now roiled in the air like furious watermelons.

Fire scored across the horrid wound in the thing’s chest, half of it easily missing, blue light leaking out, and something squirming within.

Three seconds had already passed, though, and Yanily was in the air. The behemoth tried to move, flexing its powerful arms, and the ice gave a dramatic crack. It held—and so did Nivian—but the strain was evident on both twins’ faces.

Yanily pulsed with energy above, thunder booming within the confines of the ruined building, and the rain shot away from him in a sphere. Then he was lightning, and he struck the center of the Hulking Behemoth’s chest with his empowered Skyfall. The yellow-green bar vanished, leaving a red-green one in its wake, though it was still full.

But Yanily wasn’t finished yet, and he planted both feet on the undead’s chest while wrapping his hands around his spear. Twinned Chain Lightning+ ripped across the Mid-Boss’s flesh, chewing it up where the lizard-like lightning bolts raged.

“Move!” Seena shouted, both Yanily and Nivian leaping back at the same time a glow like the sun shone from Seena.

That was Hiral’s cue, and he shot straight up with as much Rejection as he could muster. Launching like a ballista, he cleared the roof and continued vaulting into the sky with more bursts of Rejection. Hundreds of feet up in a second, he flipped in the air and drew the Emperor’s Greatsword, tethering its gravity to the Hulking Behemoth just as the first fireball hit.

“Hope you’re ready, Seeyela,” Hiral said, bursting back down with another pulse of Rejection and flooding every ounce of solar energy he could into increasing the weight of his sword.

“You’re crazy,” Seeyela said as the WHOMP, WHOMP, WHOMP, WHOMP of Seena’s fireballs hit the Mid-Boss.

Hiral spotted the sheet of black a second before everything was engulfed in flames so pure they were like a solid sphere of molten gold.

Am I even needed?

But he didn’t have time to question that. His sword hit the outer edge of the flames, and heat like dropping straight into Nivian’s cookpot washed over him. Wule’s buff—along with Hiral’s own resistance—dulled the worst of it, but he still instantly felt like he’d stepped into a scalding shower.

And then it was gone, sucking back in on itself as it consumed all the oxygen around it, and Hiral plummeted straight through a curtain of black. His stomach did a familiar flip as his orientation changed, and he suddenly went from falling vertically to horizontally—directly toward the exposed chest of the Mid-Boss.

Charred and ruined flesh gave off the smell of overdone barbeque, the monster’s right arm little more than blackened bone hanging from its shoulder. Most of its chest was missing, green and blue energy mixing where it exposed some kind of scorched, mutated, baby-like creature. Hiral didn’t have time for the horror of it to settle in his brain before he plunged his sword straight through it.

Squelch. His foot-wide blade punched through it like it was an overripe fruit, all the weight and momentum nearly obliterating the creature. Nearly, but not quite. A sliver of the Mid-Boss’s health hung on above its devastated head.

Inside the chest, two candle-sized blue flames looked at Hiral, the thing’s head just above where the Emperor’s Greatsword had pierced.

Its head!

The thing gave a grotesque, twisted smile as something moved on Hiral’s right.

The Mid-Boss’s left arm had been freed by from the ice by the titanic fireballs, and was still mostly intact.

But, thanks to Hiral’s powerful self-buffs, the arm moved in slow motion, and it was his turn to smile.

The blue-flame eyes widened as the rest of Hiral’s solar energy poured out of him, and the Ring of Amin Thett rose above his head. The Rune of Energyappeared within, arcs of power lancing from the glowing rings along one side. It wasn’t fully charged, but it didn’t need to be from this range. Folding over and over itself between seconds, the ball of energy formed and then released.

Tearing energy exploded outward and cut a two-foot hole straight through the center of the Hulking Behemoth’s chest.