B3 C52: The First Crack

There was no magic or skill behind the boss’s primal shout. No mental manipulation or stunning effect. All the same, we froze in its wake, the collective tension in the room almost a palpable thing. Deprived of secure footing and faced with a far stronger enemy than we’d fought before, all of us were torn between paralysis and dread.

All of us, save for one, of course.

“Ha! A familiar foe! A worthy opponent to close out our first true dungeon run. Now come! I look forward to our fight!” As if trying to finish off our recently shattered eardrums, Alara bellowed out, matching the titan’s roar with one of her own.

Enraged by the challenge, the reforged titan spun about, its movements sending out ripples of magma as it honed in on its self-declared opponent.

Good. At least that part isn’t any different. It looks like we can still keep it focused on Alara while she holds it down.

Unfortunately, once the boss locked eyes with Alara, it turned out it was unwilling to resolve things with a simple staring contest.

It pulled back a massive fist, its gleaming skin mesmerizing as the light from the roiling magma played over its many colors. Too close to Alara for comfort, I formed more solid footing with frost magic and distanced myself as fast as my magic could bear.

“Good! I stand ready. Come!”

Happy to oblige, the titan hurled its fist forward.

Even having done my best to get out of the way, the wind just from being near the strike threatened to blow me into the magma.

Alara, of course, was made of far sterner stuff. She accepted the punch unflinchingly, ready to shove it to the side with a smile just as she had so many times before.

It came as something of a shock, then, when she utterly and completely failed.

With a loud crunch, the titan’s fist rammed into Alara, sending her limp body hurtling into the air.

That’s not- That never happens.

For the briefest of instants, I stood there, unregistering, before reality caught up to me and my heart lurched in my chest. Frantically, I tried to figure out how she was going to save herself from falling into the molten lake.

And then it hit me.

She wasn’t. Couldn’t.

But I could.

I moved.

Not with Jet Step. The skill would launch me too far vertically, and even past that, I needed more. To be faster.

Flash Feet. I channeled light mana into my soles, not stopping there. With the skill’s class-trial augment, I layered on a second effect. Waterwalking. I launched myself off the safety of our raft of rock, my armored foot connecting with the viscous magma. Rather than sinking in, it held, and I shot off.

Bolstered by my considerable Dexterity, my Flash Feet, and my levels in Running, I was a blur, and yet still I needed more. Too much weight. I partially dismissed my armor, leaving only my greaves to insulate me from the heat.

Even with Waterwalking, however, my forceful footsteps agitated the magma beneath me, sending flecks of it flying upwards. A few found exposed skin -- a drop on my forearm, a high-flying splash on my ear -- and I sobbed out a guttural cry as I discovered just how hot molten rock truly was.

Pain Resistance has reached level 11!

Heat Resistance has reached level 9!

I wanted to stop. To curl up into fetal position. Only my resistances kept me from crumpling into a ball of pure pain right on the spot, but on I ran.

And, to my immense relief, it was enough.

Alara’s massive form crashed down into my arms, and expecting to be shoved backwards by her mass, I received a pleasant surprise when she barely weighed anything at all.

“Hah,” came a weak wheeze. “A worthy foe! And a… a good catch.”

Oh thank god. Not just alive, but conscious as well. And using her skills to lighten herself.

I resummoned my armor and started to run back to our previous position, not wishing to waste the time or mana to freeze another patch of magma. As I moved, I did my best to not take in Alara’s state, but it was an impossible task. Blood poured from her nose over the singular giant bruise that made up her entire body, while one of her arms was bent at an unnatural angle.

Even as I ran, however, a ball of red liquid coalesced in front of me, keeping pace with my movements. A stream of it broke off, rushing into Alara’s mouth and down her throat.

Oachin. I spared a glance towards the others, finding the alchemist healer with an uncorked vial in his holster, focusing intensely in our direction.

In my arms, Alara began to heal before my eyes, bruises and burns receding while bones eerily crunched and snapped back into place. It wasn’t perfect. A few patches of entirely charred skin dotted her flesh, and she still looked fairly battered.

Still, when at last my feet hit solid ground once more, Alara jumped out of my arms.

From start to finish, the entire sprint had only taken a handful of seconds. Already, I felt like I’d aged ten years.

“You have my thanks, PPG. It appears to be far heavier than it was previously. No matter! I will simply have to get more serious from the start.” She rolled her shoulders and tilted her head from side to side as if recovering from nothing more than a bout of joint stiffness. “I prefer a more solid footing for this skill, but we do not always fight in ideal situations, yes?”

With that, she widened her stance and stomped, shouting as she did so. “Immovable Object!” An air of permanence settled over her, and she called out to the boss, taunting it. “Now come! Such a weak strike will not work on me twice!”

As fixated as it had been on Alara, the titan had seemed content to gleefully watch as she nearly fell into the magma. With her safe and healed and yelling out challenges, however, it grew even more enraged.

Again it struck. Its fist slammed straight into Alara, and I tensed, ready to catch her once more.

This time, however, I needn’t have worried. She swung out with a punch of her own, and the moment the titan’s fist met hers, its motion was arrested. Luckily, her skill seemed to affect the ground beneath her too, the raft beneath us not so much as shaking.

Alara loosed a triumphant shout. “Hah! See? It can be stopped. Good. I am afraid I will be requiring frequent healing in this battle, however!” She waved the arm she’d just used in Oachin’s direction. “While nothing major, I believe I have just lightly broken several bones!”

Hell. I’m glad she’s on our side.

In response to her request, another ball of red formed before her and flowed into her mouth. When the next punch arrived, she was ready.

More than that, she even spared a hand to shoo me away.

“PPG! I thank you for your catch, but I will not be requiring your assistance any further. Go!”

More than happy to get far away from the boss’s main target, I complied. After all, I had a part to play here too.

Once more, I enhanced my greaves with Waterwalking and shot off, though this time in full frost-enhanced armor. After completely circling the boss, I repeated my earlier stunt, casting Chill while stabbing the magma with a conjured frost spear. Without Alara’s ability to fully lock myself in place, I took a painfully long time to create a foothold large enough that a single stumble wouldn’t spell the end for me.

The battle raged on while I worked, and I felt an urge to speed up as Alara’s bones continued to snap and fuse back together under Oachin’s ministrations. Through scattered glances, I watched as Emin slowly overcame the hurdle of lacking arable soil, somehow modifying Oachin’s growth solution to take root in the cloud-like foam. The results looked anemic compared to what the two usually created, but slowly, they formed their barrier of iron brambles.

When at last I finished my frosty task, it was something of a shock when my efforts were rewarded.

Frost Magic has reached level 20!

Congratu-

Not now. I’d have plenty of time for reading after this was all over.

Instead, it was time to charge up. Satisfied that I was no longer at risk of taking a magma bath, I situated myself smack dab in the middle of my terraformed foothold, summoned my bow, and started to feed it mana.

The arrow on the string pulsed with sterile gray energy as I continued to feed more and more mana into it, waiting for my chance to strike. All we needed was for the boss to give us a single opening, and hopefully this hellish encounter would be behind us.

As if sensing my desire, the titan roared once more, seemingly fed up with its inability to pulp the woman who dared challenge it. Just as it had in all of our five runs before, it pulled on the metal coating its skin, letting it flow to its hands. Twin metal spikes formed from its knuckles. And with it using that much of its coating on its hands, it would inevitably leave a bare spot for me to hit.

So I waited for my target.

And waited.

And waited.

Only to realize, slowly, horribly, that it was not there.

The ore. It has more metal coating it now. It’s fully protected even when it concentrates the metal into one place.

The titan’s vicious spiked gauntlet flew towards Alara as I panicked, struggling to keep hold of the hundreds of points of death mana I’d invested into my arrow. Just like she always did, she pushed the blow to the side, though this time not without suffering for it. The tip of the spike dug into her as she swiped it to the side, scoring a nasty gash across her chest. But for all that it looked grisly, the wound sealed shut as Oachin’s endless stream of healing flowed into her.

And on it continued just like that, shattered bones, gashes, healing, shattered bones, gashes healing, as I waited and waited and waited, until at last, I couldn’t wait anymore.

I fired my arrow at the titan’s arm. Several hundreds of points of mana empowered it. On the supercharged instrument of death flew, until-

Tink.

Ineffectively, it ricocheted off.

For a split second, the entire room froze. Even the titan paused in its assault.

And then, seeming to realize what had happened, with a plodding, unhurried slowness, it turned to face me.

No, not to attack. Not to switch targets.

When at last its eyes met mine, it simply stood there.

And smiled.

Even with the oppressive heat, I felt ice run through my veins as I took in the gleeful visage of the titan. And worse than the face itself was what it signified.

You can’t hurt me, its expression seemed to gloat. Spend all your mana. All your potions. There’s nothing you can do.

My mind raced to find some sort of counterpoint. Some special skill that one of us had been holding in reserve -- something that could damage it.

Not content to let me think in peace, however, the titan chose that moment to strike. Now that I’d struck him, he appeared to view the rest of us as fair game, and four giant blobs of metal pinched themselves off from his skin. Rapidly, they formed into four blades which hovered in the air, considerably larger than they’d been during the standard boss fights. Each of them was angled downwards, pointed towards one of us barring Alara.

Rather than being afraid of the titan’s attack, however, I felt a new spark of hope light up within me.

That’s it. Its ranged attacks. It has to spend some of its coating to send those blades at us. If we can just last long enough, it’ll run out of its armor, and I can attack!

It wasn’t ideal, but provided Alara could keep it up and Oachin could keep healing her, we had a chance!

The blades shot forth, one at me and three towards the iron wall protecting the others. Expecting it, I dodged to the side before it arrived, and it flew by, harmlessly.

It’ll be slow. And painful. But we’ve got thi-

The discordant shriek of metal on metal filled the air as the three blades met Emin and Oachin’s defenses, scraping against them.

And then.

Quite suddenly.

A cry.

A single pained shout which filled the air.

And then louder, more coherently, a series of screams.

“No. NO. NO, NO, NO!” A high-pitched voice wailed the word over and over again.

My head snapped towards the shouting, and the blood drained out of my face as I saw it.

Two of the titan’s swords lay trapped in the iron brambles, just as planned. Whether due to the lack of ideal soil or the boss’s increased strength, however, the third had powered straight through.

Straight into the person behind. Further yet into the cloudy substance beneath. And even then, further, forming a small crater in the foam. Parts of it had dispersed entirely, the magma below bubbling upwards to fill the void left behind.

And in the center of that crater, with a sword firmly embedded in his sternum and an entire foot dipped into the collecting pool of magma, was Oachin.

He lay still and silent.

Before I could even move, Nella had already rocketed towards him and collected his body, moving it back behind the brambles and away from the molten rock which threatened to swallow him. Faster than I’d known she could move, she grabbed one of the bottles from his holster and uncorked it, forcing half the vial’s contents into his mouth.

Blissfully, it started to work.

With a spluttering cough, Oachin awoke. Only, somehow, that only made things worse.

Because that’s when the screaming started.

Spurred by the power of his only healing potion, Oachin’s body reknit itself in real time. Except, there was one glaring issue -- his wounds couldn’t close.

The skin on his chest pressed against the sword still lodged in his body, forming around it. His leg fared even worse -- having rapidly cooled down, bits of magma had solidified into lava rock, some of it embedded into his skin, some of it forming a crust around partially exposed bone. As his flesh attempted to reform itself, it met the superheated rocks and was burned back with a hiss and a sizzle. Even worse than the sound was the smell, ashy, crispy, and disgustingly savory.

“Stay with me, Oachie. I know it hurts but just… keep drinking your potion, all right?” Realizing what the issue was, Nella tugged on the sword still lodged within her brother. With the flesh having grown up against it, though, it was even more firmly stuck than before. Even so, she forced it upwards, the worst of his bleeding starting up again.

Oachin’Larin: 23/250hp

I rushed over from my tiny island, peppering the alchemist with as much healing as I could muster a soon as I arrived. The more healing he received, though, the more his wound closed back up around the sword. His health continued to plummet, nothing we could do enough to fully counteract the bleeding or the burns.

And the entire time, the screaming, screaming, screaming.

Oachin’Larin: 19/250hp

“It needs to come out!” Nella forced the rest of the healing potion into Oachin’s mouth and then yanked. As if it had a mind of its own, however, the sword refused to fully extricate itself from the healer’s body, the bottom fourth stuck fast. She tugged and tugged, her motions only serving to widen his wounds at this point.

Oachin’Larin 15/250hp

Off to the side, Emin stood mute, staring at the prone form of Oachin but not really seeing him, eyes glassy and shell-shocked. Nella launched a harmless jet of flames by his face, snapping him from his stupor.

“Do something! Fix it! Give him some blood-producing power or modify him so he doesn’t have wounds! I don’t care what, just do it now!”

Oachin’Larin: 11/250hp

With dead eyes, Emin scanned the screaming form in front of him until he reached some semblance of understanding.

“Right. Oh gods. I’m so sorry. I can’t… The blade has nicked his heart. There’s nothing, except-” Emin reached into a pocket and cast something, and at last, the screams finally stopped.

Oachin’Larin: 7/250hp

Seeing that her brother’s health was still going down, Nella shook Emin by the shoulders as I furiously dumped my mana into healing our healer.

“What did you do! What did you do!” She rushed back to Oachin, this time trying to burn the sword out of him, fire streaming from her hands as she attempted to melt the stubborn sword. The only reason it didn’t kill him instantly was the constant supply of life mana I was pouring into him. Even with my life enhancements and my cantrip’s minor blood restoration, his health continued to fall, though.

Belatedly, Emin whispered out an answer. “What I should have done from the start. Transferred his nerve endings away. He’s not… he’s not in pain anymore.”

Rather than mollifying her, the news enraged Nella. “What do you mean he’s not in pain? That’s not healing him! Do something. DO something!”

Oachin’Larin: 3/250hp

Freed from the pain, Oachin regained a sliver of his senses, his hand sliding over to his sister. Even as he grabbed her, she didn’t stop pulling at the sword, trying to melt it away, trying to do something.

I don’t know what I expected. Maybe some last-ditch skill to save the day or some priceless artifact to activate and heal him back to full health. A potion he’d brewed just for a situation like this, or full-on divine intervention.

Failing that, this was a world of fantasy. It would at least be like in the movies, right? With a resolute nod, he’d rattle off some noble line like “Don’t waste your mana on me! Save yourselves!” Or perhaps something warm and comforting. Something to calm his sister and make it easier for her. Something to remember him by.

But of course, no.

He blubbered, snot covering his face while tears streamed down his eyes. There was no glory here. The scent of smoke and flesh filled the air, the air so hot it burned your lungs with each breath. And as his health slowly crept downwards, his blood pooling and sizzling against the rock beneath him, Oachin weakly wheezed out three simple words.

“I’m… so… scared.”

He repeated them once more, and then again and again.

“I’m so scared, sis. I’m scared.”

Like a mantra, as if it were the last thing keeping him alive, he kept at it, only stopping to take short, gasping breaths.

Bit by bit, though, he grew quieter and quieter.

Then, he was just moving his lips, the words refusing to come out.

And soon, even that stopped as he grew perfectly, utterly still.

And then.

Silence.

As if in mourning, the room grew still alongside him, even Nella frozen, muted.

Even as my heart jumped into my throat, the unnatural quiet sent alarm bells blaring in my head. At any moment I expected it to be rudely interrupted by another salvo of blades or the crash of fist against fist.

But no.

Just quiet.

And so, despite myself, I turned from the body -- the corpse, rather -- of someone I’d been starting to consider a friend, and I looked towards the creature who had killed him.

Looming above us, the titan gazed downwards. Unhurried. Unthreatened.

And having taken in the last moments of Oachin’Larin, would-be alchemist extraordinaire and loving brother, it turned to me.

And with nothing but sheer, predatory delight.

It smiled.