During this admittedly impressive display of tanking, Athios, Daisy, Garath, and Maimon waited where they had appeared. Garath twirled the new rings he’d received from Brandon that morning around in circles on his index fingers as he waited. He summoned his Dreadreaver, then willed Bill and Handsome into existence, eliciting a yelp from Daisy, which led to a slap on the shoulder from Athios.
“Don’t just summon your demons without some kind of warning,” she said. “We know they’re under your control but they’re still freaking demons, Garath.”
"Is he going to be okay?" Daisy asked with her arms folded and a speculative expression as she watched Auto run around like a wild animal with a growing horde of demons on his heels..
"They aren't doing much to him, really," Athios observed with one hand under her chin. The Dimensionalist was right. Auto's HP bar had barely dipped as he ran toward them with close to fifty demonic goat-people behind him.
*I'm going to put their backs to you between the first set of rooms,* Auto called over the Party channel. Garath found it interesting that his voice sounded normal through this form of communication, when he could barely understand him in Man-Bear form. *Get ready.*
*We've just been standing here, ready,* Daisy replied over the Party channel.
"Don't use the Party channel for anything unimportant," Athios instructed. The Dimensionalist had taken it upon herself to mentor the girl, and ultimately make sure she wouldn't cost them their lives.
Daisy nodded and prepared herself for phase two of Auto's two-part dungeon strategy.
As promised, when the winded bear-man got to his marked location, he spun into a quick stop, then leaped impressively over the hoard of angry demons and landed behind them.
*Now!* Auto called.
The Party got to work. Maimon healed the few points of Health that Auto had lost during his mad dash, then placed glossy bubbles over each Party member as they entered attack range. Garath activated Plague, draining HP from every goat-demon in the room, then sent his demons into the chaotic melee. Bill and the Golem came at the goatmen from behind, the former tearing into flesh and fur and the latter slashing and pummeling with its two great arms. A mental command sent Handsome in close to land a Blight on as many of the enemies as possible before returning to hover beside Garath, where the two spammed Death Bolts into the quickly thinning horde.
Athios smartly relocated the few goatmen near the back of the group whose attention was pulled to the casters, away from Auto. If she placed them back into the horde, they’d simply make another dash to attack the casters. But when she relocated the stragglers to the far side of the horde, where Auto was cleaving them to pieces in apparent glee, they would switch targets to focus on the tank, instead of clambering through their comrades to make it back to them.
Daisy put all the time she’d spent practicing to good use. She opened the fight with a torrent of ice shards, raining down from a cloud that moved from right to left across the horde of goatmen. Then she made use of her new spell, Frostfire Bolt. They detonated on impact, generating area-of-effect damage to all enemies within a few feet of her target. When the ice cloud dissipated, Daisy channeled her Mana into another. By the time it passed over the grouped enemies, almost all of them were dead.
Auto finished the last goat-demon with a savage slash that disemboweled the creature, spilling hot innards onto the floor of the tunnel. Corpses littered on the ground, and Garath and Athios showed Daisy how to gather the Mana Crystals hovering over their lifeless bodies. The three of them swept the room, tapping each of the teal orbs before the Party gathered to discuss next steps.
After recovering their Mana and catching their breath, the Party moved to investigate the rooms branching off from the main tunnel. In each of the now unoccupied side rooms, they found and destroyed the black globe that the goat-men had been gathered around. This, they reasoned, would open a previously unseen passage. It always did in situations like these.
Instead, the protective barrier at the far end of the hall weakened, growing more transparent each time an orb was destroyed. After breaking three of the globes, the shadow of a hulking figure appeared behind the barrier. After five, they were able to make out its form.
The demon stood unmoving, towering over them at nine feet tall behind the thinning protective barrier. The obviously male dungeon boss' lanky arms hung past its knees and two long horns were visible through the sparking magical shield. No weapon was apparent, but his size, demonic aura, and the foot-long claws tipping his fingers were intimidating enough. The boss wore a flowing black cloak that covered most of its legs and torso. After they had destroyed the eighth globe, Garath was able to trigger Inspect on the huge demon.
Illunitus
Arch Demon
Health: 3,550/3,550
Level: 21
Station: Boss
Mana: 2,300/2,300
Description: Long held against his will by the half-demons of Goabanga who sought to harness his power for themselves, Illunitus is now free.
"Magic user," Auto growled. "Maimon, go grab the last orb and bring it here."
"Get it yourself," Maimon said defiantly.
"Okay, no problem. And if he breaks out early, you tank him."
"Ugh, fine." Maimon walked into the last room to gather the orb as Daisy and Athios returned from breaking the ninth.
"When he gets loose," Auto said to Daisy, Athios and Garath, "gimme a couple seconds to piss him off. Wait for my signal to attack."
"What's the signal?" Daisy asked
"I'll yell attack, really loud," Auto growled, nodding sagely.
"That works," said Athios, smiling. She could see why Auto and Garath had become friends. Between their similar tendency to recklessly attack and the similar level of competence in executing said insanity, she was disappointed to have met them both at a time when dungeon runs were potentially fatal and couldn't be enjoyed from the comfort of her solitude.
"Shouldn't we wait for the other guy to go over the boss fight?" Daisy asked.
"He'll be fine," Auto growled. "All he's gotta do is keep me alive. Easy mode."
"Easier said than done sometimes," Maimon said, exiting the room with the last basketball-sized orb in hand. The Rabbi turned to meet them at the end of the main corridor in front of Illunitus.
"Oh good, the gang's all here. We ready?" Auto said.
"One sec," Athios said. She turned to look at Daisy. "That demon is about to come to life. And he's not going to like us very much. Your first job is to stay alive. Your second job is to blow him to smithereens. Got it?"
"Got it!” Daisy said. “I'll be careful. And I can always fly away."
"Only if I tell you to, otherwise just stay close to me and follow directions, okay?" Athios said.
"Okay," Daisy said enthusiastically, pumping one fist in the air. "Ready!"
"Ready," Athios agreed.
“Ready,” Garath said. He took a moment to give his demons each a brief mental command.
Auto nodded to Maimon, who lifted the black orb and slammed it into the ground. Just like the nine before it, the orb shattered and the dark energy contained within dissolved into thin air.
The last layer of the barrier surrounding Illunitus dissolved and beneath him, a previously unnoticed pentagram lit up a sickly shade of green. It intensified into a concentrated neon, then shot a five-pointed beam of magic into the dungeon boss. Illunitus' mouth and eyes jerked open and Fel magic burst out of them like strobe lights for a few seconds, then the light show stopped as abruptly as it had started. Only the neon glow remained in his eye sockets behind blood red eyes, giving off an ominous orange light.
The hulking demon didn't seem to notice the dungeon Party at all. He cracked his neck left, then right, then rolled it slowly around with a series of loud creaks and pops. As he started rolling his head back around in reverse, Auto lost his patience.
"Hey!" the Chimerist growled. No response.
In front of where Auto stood, a ma
gic line on the ground curved to connect one side of the hall to the other. It didn’t escape the Garath’s notice that it was exactly where the magical barrier had been moments before.
"Hey, dick bag!" Auto tried again, this time with an added insult for flavor. Illunitus grunted once, but the only other response was another round of creaks and pops as the massive demon continued to roll his head in slow circles.
"Auto, don't..." Athios started to say, but it was too late.
Auto charged the monster, barreling on all fours past the magically illuminated line. As soon as he crossed the threshold, Illunitus stopped rolling his neck and looked up sharply.
The smile stretching across Illunitus' hideous features was vexing. His ominously glowing eyes squinted, and black skin pulled tight over his snout to reveal a pair of oversized incisors. Long, twisted black horns protruded just above the demon's eyebrows over two feet in length.
Apart from the canine-like snout, pitch black skin, and devilish horns, his facial features and the shape of his head and anatomy were vaguely human. Not humanoid, but actually human. Illunitus' appearance and similarity to his own features made Garath more than a little uncomfortable.
Athios took advantage of the fact that a global cooldown no longer applied to her to get Auto out of danger. She sent one disk below the Man-Bear's paws and a second six feet off the ground on the friendly side of the magic line. Auto immediately fell from his location in front of the dungeon boss and reappeared, feet first, only five yards away on the ‘safe’ side of the magic line across the ground. For a fraction of a second, his body appeared severed, the head and torso still on the wrong side of the line as his feet and legs emerged close to where Garath, Athios, Maimon, and Daisy were still standing.
During that exact fraction of a second, Illunitus released a spell. With one hand outstretched, he spoke a word of power and a tendril of green smoke slithered through the air. It connected with Auto's head as he slipped through Athios' disk, then reappeared with the rest of his body a few feet away.
"Shit," Auto said. "He got me with a debuff. Cleanse this shit, Rabbi!"
Garath saw a debuff icon appear next to Auto's nameplate and willed more information to appear.
Illunitus' Innervation - while active on Illunitus: increases effective Level by 50%. While active on anything else: decreases effective Level by 50%.
A quick glance at Auto’s stats made Garath cringe. Auto had been Level 29. With the debuff active, not only did his level get cut in half, it also got rounded down to 14. Garath noticed that the Chimerist’s maximum HP had dropped significantly, but stayed at 100%.
Maimon closed his eyes, staff raised.
Then opened them. Nothing happened.
"Can't cleanse it. It's not a poison," Maimon said with a guilty, panicked expression, as if it were his fault the cleansing spell didn't work.
Illunitus took one step toward the Party with a confident grin. He put his hands together, forming a circle with his thumbs and index fingers in front of his chest, where a glowing, neon-green ball appeared. It grew as the dungeon boss spread his arms wide until it stretched into a disk as tall as the demon, similar to Athios' Dimensional disks but with streaks of black lightning dancing across the surface.
The demon kept his gaze locked on Auto and crooked one finger, beckoning him to follow before stepping into the portal. When he did, the magic line on the ground faded then disappeared completely. Auto growled, ground his sharp teeth, then walked toward the portal.
"That is obviously a trap," Athios stated firmly, readying herself to send the tank through another rip in space-time away from the portal if necessary.
“Probably,” Auto growled his agreement, still walking toward the portal.
“He’s got the right idea,” Garath said. “I don’t see anything else we can do here, do you?”
“Well, no.” Athios pulled and twisted at a lock of hair near her ear. “ And killing that monster may be the only way to get that debuff off of Auto, so we’ve got to go in there. It’s just so obviously a trap.
Without further deliberation, the Party approached and entered the ominous portal. Auto went in first, followed in short order by Garath, Maimon, Athios and Daisy.
You have entered Illunitus’ Pocket Dimension.
Death Magic 100% more effective; Dark Magic 100% more effective; Blood Magic 100% more effective.
In his Pocket Dimension, Illunitus receives:
+500 Health
+500 Mana
+30% Cast Speed
-50% Damage Received
In Illunitus’ Pocket Dimension, you receive:
-10% Cast Speed
+50% Damage Received
Auto had already engaged the dungeon boss by the time Garath entered the pocket dimension and absorbed the informational prompt.
The room they now stood in was the size of a basketball court. The walls, floor, and ceiling were uniform black with gridlines of neon green.
The Chimerist swiped his sharp claws at the demon, raking both legs and landing a bleed debuff. Then Auto roared a challenge just like he had when they’d entered the dungeon. Garath wondered if his friend was just really into his role as the tank, or if the throaty bellow had some kind of aggro effect like a taunt. One way or another, Auto achieved his desired result.
Illunitus, with his improved stats, retaliated. The towering demon sent a tri-colored bolt of magic at the Chimerist. One third of the attack was a pure black ball, one third a deep purple and, and the last ball of magic matched the color of Boss’s blood-red eyes. The three magical energies spun as they shot from Illunitus' outstretched hands and into Auto's chest. The Party's tank reeled back from the impact and his Healthbar dipped dramatically to just under 50% from the single attack. Garath cringed, thinking about whether or not he would have lived through the same attack, had he been the target.
"Next time he moves his hand up like that, hit him with a Counterspell," Athios instructed Daisy. The little girl had reached out and grabbed the Dimensionalist's hand as soon as they emerged into the pocket dimension. Athios yanked her hand back. "Don't touch my hands. We're casters, Daisy! We need to be able to use our hands at a second's notice, because..."
Athios didn't finish her reprimand. Illunitus raised his hand again and Daisy lifted her own to match.
"Counterspell!" Daisy shouted. Athios smiled at her, glad she got the message and was able to keep her head in the game.
Illunitus opened his mouth to speak a word of power and complete the cast, but no sound escaped his lips, and no tri-colored mass of magic left his outstretched hand. Athios knew Counterspell would be an interrupt, known in the Magic the Gathering crowd as 'another fucking blue instant'. What they would learn later was that, if triggered while a target was casting, Counterspell came with an additional effect—the target would be unable to cast any spells from the same school of magic for eight seconds. Because Illunitus had been casting the tri-colored attack that drew from the power of three different spell schools, the dungeon boss was locked out of all spells from the schools of Death, Dark, and Blood magic. In addition to locking Illunitus out of the three schools of magic he was proficient in, Daisy's Counterspell also caused spell backlash, causing Illunitus to shriek in pain.
With an unholy screech that seemed too high-pitched to come from such an enormous being, Illunitus triggered another ability. Five glowing red circles appeared, one below the feet of each party member.
Garath and Handsome had stacked three Quickening Entropies each on Illunitus by that point, all of which were doing 100% more damage for being in the pocket dimension. Garath was forced to stop his fourth cast of Creeping Death to deal with the ominous red circle below his feet.
*Move your asses,* warned Auto on the Party channel.
Garath agreed. If nearly two decades of gaming had taught him anything, it was to avoid standing on magically illuminated spots, especially red ones. Garath moved his ass.
After a quick glance to ensure Daisy
was on the move, Athios cast Self Transport and a silver dimensional disk appeared below her feet. She emerged milliseconds later, falling from close to the top of the pocket dimension, then shifted seamlessly into Crow form.
From her aerial perspective, Athios noticed and quickly relayed the fact that the ominous red circles were following their respective Party member.
*Daisy, Crow now!*
Daisy followed the order instantly, shimmering into her undersized Crow form, already running to get away from the worrisome magical circle chasing her. With her little crow feet picking up where her little human feet left off, she nailed her hurried takeoff without a second to spare.
Auto was the only member of the Party that hadn't shifted into a flight capable form during the three seconds between the red circles appearing and what came next. The Chimerist opted instead to remain in Man-Bear form, clawing and swiping at the dungeon boss while Illunitus' current lack of available spell options were still an advantage. Even with the Party's tank operating at half his usual strength, the gargantuan leader of the goat-demons was taking some serious damage. Illunitus Healthbar was down over twenty percent and still dropping, but Illunitus wasn't out of tricks yet and his eight seconds of impotence, courtesy of Daisy, had almost elapsed.
When the red circles detonated, four of the resulting neon-green explosions were wasted on airborne targets. The fifth detonated below Auto, hurling the Man-Bear twenty yards away where he landed hard on the ground. The muscular Man-Bear rolled on impact then took off at a sprint back to the dungeon boss.
With a sweep of her wings and an arch of her back, Daisy gained altitude quickly, then stalled like a plane whose upward angle was too sharp. She hung, suspended in the air, as her wings tucked into her torso and she twisted to face the ground. She dropped, but her wings spread again, and she fired off a Frostfire Bolt. She remained in Crow form, firing more Frostfire Bolts at the dungeon boss before spinning and spreading her wings to stop the free fall. Then she’d rocket back into the air and repeat the cycle.
The Tree of Ascension: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Peril's Prodigy Book 2) Page 19
