New Story -- Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Thaden threw himself out of the encircling Undead, narrowly missing being skewered by the creepy bone appendage of the multi-legged monster trying to pounce on him. He normally would’ve had his Minor Repulsion Field up to block the attack, but he was also being assaulted by a trio of Phantasmal Shriekers.

He had found out the hard way that it was much better to be stabbed by something rather than lie helpless as the Shriekers caused him to become too dizzy to function properly.

As he sprang to his feet, out of breath from all the running he’d been doing, he looked back at the monster that had nearly killed him.

Berthoud, The Bone Springer (Mini Boss) – Medial

Level 32

The massive, spider-like abomination was at least 20 feet wide and 8 feet tall, and its main body was a writhing mass of undulating bones in a vaguely ovoid shape. It had at least a dozen legs made out of hundreds of bones all held together by the same dark energy that kept all the Skeletons he’d seen thus far from falling apart, and it used those legs to not only move quickly around the 200-foot-wide mausoleum room, but to spring up with seemingly no effort and land upon its victims, stabbing them through with the sharpened points of it bony legs.

Thaden was tired after his experience in the dungeon, as he had spent at least 7 of the 12 hours allotted to him on the SPECIAL Quest just getting this far. As he’d traveled deeper inside, more and more elaborate bone sculptures and décor could be found throughout the different rooms, and more and more Skeleton monsters awaited him as the main obstacle to progressing further.  Over the last few hours, he’d practiced walking on the edge of disaster by learning how to quickly switch back and forth between his two Fields, as well as moving around the attacking Undead with what he felt was pretty snazzy dodges and rolls, though he was sure if anyone was looking they would say he was simply flinging himself around and hoping that he didn’t accidentally brain himself by smashing into a wall.

It had taken being cut by swords, hit by arrows, shot by more than his fair share of necrotic projectiles, and impaled by shrapnel and the edges of deadly traps he accidentally set off a time or two in his movement to get a handle on the flow of the fight against the Undead. That being said, he only had a small handle on the flow of a fight now, thanks only to the fact that the Undead were relatively dumb and had no imagination; they did the same things over and over again even when it didn’t work, and he used that to his advantage more than once.

Then came the introduction of the same Phantasmal Shriekers he’d seen at night outside, which changed up the whole game. The first time he’d actually been “hurt” by one of them touching him, his movements had slowed down to the point where it felt like he was moving in slow motion, and his physical energy felt drained in a way that he knew would be deadly if he allowed it to continue more than a second or two. It was difficult at that point to even think as his mind also seemed to slow down, and that alone made it a priority to defend against the effects of the Shrieker no matter what else was happening.

Fortunately, they were also relatively weak in the Health department, so only a couple usages of Minor Mass Healing was able to destroy them.

But with all the running away from Skeletons he’d been doing while killing the Shriekers first, he was becoming exhausted. He’d taken the time after a while to eat and drink the rest of what he had in his pack, and the pick-me-up was what he needed to push on just a little further.

Which was what finally brought him to facing down Berthoud, The Bone Springer, inside of the largest room he’d seen so far. Circular in shape, the 200-foot-diamter room boasted 60-foot ceilings, a relatively dust-free stone floor, and the completely destroyed remnants of stone plaques and busted-up caskets lining the inside perimeter of the large space. Along the back of the room opposite of where he had entered was a massive throne constructed entirely of bones, and a statue of some undead figure sat upon it. At least, he thought it was a statue as it hadn’t moved since he walked in, and he couldn’t target it or see its name.

Of course, Thaden hadn’t been able to study it for too long before the giant form of Berthoud descended from the ceiling, nearly impaling him in the first seconds of the fight. Thankfully, his Minor Repulsion Field saved him from the attack, allowing him to back away from the monstrosity.

That was when dozens of Phantasmal Shriekers appeared from the walls, passing through the stone with their insubstantiality, and descended upon Thaden in small clumps. He’d been running around and avoiding being impaled by Berthoud’s limbs for nearly 5 minutes now, and he was quickly running out of breath and energy – and there was very little sign that the Bone Springer was being seriously damaged by his spells. The reason for that was that it was able to quickly move out of range of his Aura of Life, and only a fraction of the Minor Mass Healings he was using to whittle down the Shriekers even reached it, meaning that it was still sitting with a large chunk of Health at its disposal.

Thankfully, another wide-area healing spell was all he needed to wipe out the last of the Shriekers, allowing him to switch back to his physical protection spell. As soon as he did that, he practically collapsed where he was standing, flopping himself down on his back. As he sat up, he was stabbed with a half-dozen bony appendages, all of them bouncing off his Field, and he looked at the assortment of eerily grinning skulls that made up the “face” of Berthoud.

“Alright, your turn, finally.”

The Bone Springer was somewhat more intelligent than any of the other Undead he’d fought, as it started to spring away when it sensed that his Mass Healing was off cooldown. However, as he was being stabbed by its legs, he had swapped out his Weak Cure Physical Affliction and slotted in his Weak Health Reduction spell in its place. Even as it began to jump away, he spammed the newly slotted spell, casting it instantly at least twenty times over the next second.

Having experimented with it a little while he was making his way through the dungeon, he discovered that the Health reduction effect of the spell – which reduced a target’s maximum Health by 20 – didn’t necessarily stack with each other; what that meant was that he couldn’t instantly reduce even the most powerful monster’s Health down to the minimum of 1 by casting it a thousand times in a row. However, he’d also discovered something that probably wasn’t an intended feature as it meshed with his Afterglow Advancement, which essentially “healed” the target of a Support-based spell for 1% of their maximum Health every 5 seconds for the next 60 seconds.

Apparently, something seemed to happen while calculating the maximum Health of his target when it was being affected by his Weak Health Reduction; or, more accurately, when its maximum Health was reduced and then replaced by another reduction effect, one after another after another. Nothing happened for the first 10 or so spells cast in a row, but after that, somehow the Afterglow Advancement seemed to believe that the target’s maximum Health was higher than it actually was. He was unable to experiment on himself to see if it worked on a friendly target because his spell would’ve brought him down to 1 Health, and he wasn’t willing to risk accidentally dying by a stray trap or attack he didn’t see coming; nevertheless, what his experiments on the Undead showed him was that as the Afterglow Advancement calculated the Maximum Health of the target after being affected by multiple casts of Weak Health Reduction, it began to “heal” the target more.

It was easiest to test this on the Skeleton Rangers that he’d fought in the dungeon, as he could leave them alone for the most part at the end of a fight and test identical spells on Rangers of the same Level, only changing the number of times he used Weak Health Reduction on each one. Compiling the data after he was done with those experiments, he determined that each of the Rangers had approximately 400 Health to start with; when he reduced it with his spell, the control had 370 Health and was damaged by 3.7 Health per 5 seconds due to the effect of Afterglow. The other one, which he’d spammed the Health Reduction spell on, still had only 370 health, but it ended up losing a bit less than three times the amount at around 9.8 Health per 5 seconds.

Granted, his calculations might not be as precise as they could be because he couldn’t see real-time damage outputs, but some quick mental calculations after the tests showed them to be relatively accurate. Unfortunately, around 3% was the extent of the effect he could achieve, as there seemed to be a limit; even after spamming hundreds of the spell on a single target, it never advanced past that.

The abnormal maximum Health calculation paired with his Afterglow effect wasn’t going to break the System or anything, but every little bit of damage he could do was worth it – and 3% of the Bone Springer’s maximum Health ticking off after every 5 seconds was all he needed.

Still sitting down while Berthoud jumped around sporadically, constantly being hurt by the Afterglow effect as it attempted to stab him through his Field, Thaden timed his casts of Minor Mass Healing and Minor Regeneration for when the Undead monster was near him. Each cast renewed the 3% Afterglow effect, and in less than a minute he could see signs that it was starting to fall apart from the damage being done to it. In less than two minutes, the “Mini Boss” finally collapsed into a heap of bones near the center of the room, as Thaden lethargically looked on from his seated position.

“Congratulations, Contender,” a sudden, gravelly voice boomed out, the scratchiness in its quality hinting that its owner hadn’t spoken in a long time. Startled by the sudden start of a conversation he wasn’t expecting, Thaden looked up to see the figure on the bone throne standing up, before stepping down onto the floor of the room. The Assistant Healer felt a rumble underneath him as the 25-foot-tall skeleton’s foot impacted the floor, accompanied by a significantly loud *thud*. Looking above its head in shock, he breathed a sigh of relief as his goal was finally approaching completion.

He'd found the monster he was supposed to kill.

Arpath, The Bone Defiler (Boss) – Medial

Level 40

Level 40? That’s just wrong if they expected a party of Level 25 Adventurers to come in here and kill it. Then again, he really had no idea how powerfully a party of Level 25 members from the Coalition could be, so he might be underselling them. Still, it seemed unlikely that they would be able to defeat something so far above them in Level – unless they had the advantages that Thaden did, of course.

Even for him, something that was 19 Levels above him was hard to even think about.

“You’ve made it this far, but I cannot allow you to delay my escape; the breaking of this dungeon is inevitable, and—”

As it spoke, it walked toward him, raising a blackened bone staff in its hand that seemed to be made of a single bone – one that was nearly as tall as it was. Thaden had trouble imagining something large enough to have a leg bone that was 20 feet long, but he wouldn’t put it past this world to have something like that. Perhaps a dragon or a giant? I don’t think I’d enjoy meeting one of those if I’m being honest.

Seeing that it was likely beginning to cast something, the exhausted Assistant Healer cut off the Boss’ monologue by casting Minor Regeneration when it was at the edge of his range, followed quickly by Minor Mass Healing and then a whole lot of Weak Health Reduction to start the process of whittling it down.

“YOUR BONES WILL SERVE ME IN DEATH!” Arpath shouted loud enough that it shook the room and perhaps the entire dungeon, and Thaden had to cover his ears. It was already too late for his hearing, though, as his eardrums burst and he felt blood dripping out of them. The shout was apparently magical in nature because his Minor Repulsion Field did absolutely nothing to mitigate the sound, so he switched his Field to Absorption to hopefully prevent any further effects.

He was glad that he did, too, because the next moment the Bone Defiler gestured with his dark staff and Thaden was enveloped by a massive necrotic cloud. While it didn’t harm him because of his Field, he couldn’t see anything through it. Getting to his feed, another cast of Mass Healing fixed his ears, just in time to hear the rattling of bones stampeding in his direction.

Flinging himself to the side, he was clipped in the foot by what looked to be some sort of hellish wolf abomination constructed of bones, standing 5 feet at the shoulder and at least 10 feet in length. Its jaws barely missed clamping down on his ankle, but he was still sent spinning away as he felt his lower leg bone crack from the impact with the hard skeletal structure of the Undead monster.

Thankfully, while he felt more than half of his Health disappear from that hit and he could sense a whole lot of pain in his future once his body got over the shock of the injury, he was also flung out of the necrotic cloud. Bouncing in a flailing sprawl, he finally stopped moving and was able to look around, only to be shot in the face by the biggest necrotic projectile he’d ever seen, at least 5 times bigger than the ones the Skeleton Death Mages threw at him throughout the dungeon. It was still absorbed by his Field, of course, but the fact that The Bone Defiler could not only cast necrotic clouds but throw out projectiles that traveled almost faster than he could see them was horrifying.

Especially when he saw a veritable army of bony abominations scrambling toward him.

Glancing around in a panic, Thaden realized that the fallen Bone Springer had been repurposed by the Boss, its bones somehow converted into the shapes of grotesque animals and humanoid figures with enormous heads, multiple arms and legs, and/or some sort of additional appendage that defied all logic.  There was just something unnatural about their appearance that frightened him more than anything else he’d seen. I suppose that’s why he’s called The Bone Defiler.

The inane thought shook him free from the paralysis he felt at seeing what he was up against, and he scrambled as quickly away from the approaching monstrosities despite the broken leg, though it was slowly healing due to his ongoing healing spells. He was hit again by an enormous necrotic projectile, which was thankfully absorbed, but the first of the bony attackers was already upon him. A cast of Minor Mass Healing as it came off cooldown was enough to fix his leg up the rest of the way, and as the wave of healing energy blasted out around him, he looked back to see the leading elements of the skeletal forces suddenly collapse.

What? They’re that weak? This should be—

He didn’t get to finish the thought as the skeletons that had been “killed” by his spell suddenly started moving, putting themselves back together as if nothing had happened. In less than a pair of seconds, they were back up and running with the rest of the forces, unhindered by the fact that they had just died a few seconds ago.

That thing is reanimating them. It’s cheating.

Then again, so was Thaden.

We’ll just have to see who’s the biggest cheater.

Able to move again, Thaden immediately ran away from the army of bones heading his way, though he knew he only had a few seconds before he was caught by the much faster skeleton abominations. Looking over his shoulder, he first targeted what appeared to be a 4-foot-tall squirrel that had three arms that were essentially large bone spikes and a tail that ended with a snapping skull at the tip, and quickly cast Minor Regeneration followed by Weak Health Reduction. He wasn’t able to spam it like he did against the Boss because he switched to another target and did the same thing, before leapfrogging from another and another. As the damage-over-time effects were applied to them, he could see the smallest of them begin to collapse as enough damage was applied to them with the first 5-second tick, though the larger ones were still going.

Thaden was hit by yet another necrotic projectile a second later, but it was absorbed by the Field once again; unfortunately, he wasn’t going to be able to keep that up as the first of the skeletons arrived, and he was forced to switch it up to physical protection.

Three seconds.

That seemed to be the interval between projectiles, which he kept a count of as he was overtaken and surrounded by bone-constructed monsters; his Minor Repulsion Field kept them off, even sending a few bouncing away from the repulsion effect, but he was busy keeping time in his head. At three seconds, he looked beyond the growing crowd around him and saw the flash of the necrotic projectile coming toward him; he quickly switched his Field and absorbed the spell, but took a bite by something to his arm before he was able to switch it back. As the offending Undead was repulsed, Thaden saw the cooldown end on Mass Healing, which ended up catching every single skeleton abomination around him, “killing” them all.

Even as they were being reconstructed, the Assistant Healer made sure to target each of the ones he hadn’t been able to get to with both Minor Regeneration and Weak Health Reduction, and he was happy to see that the ones he had hit before still maintained the effects. Apparently, they never actually “died”, but were only temporarily destroyed – and therefore his spells continued to affect them.

Shuffling through the reanimating skeletons, he took another necrotic projectile on his quickly switched Absorption Field, as he started moving toward Arpath. Unlike the Vogmite Queen who was more than willing to get close to him to try and beat him with her scepter, The Bone Defiler kept his distance as it moved away, continuously firing its magical projectiles as it kept him at a distance. That was fine with him, as all he needed was to get a little bit closer so that he could renew his spells and hit it with another Minor Mass Healing if possible, though that latter wasn’t necessarily that important. He was already doing massive amounts of damage through the Afterglow effect, renewed by additional casts of Minor Regeneration at a distance.

As for the skeletons following him, half of them would run after him for a few seconds before Regeneration or Afterglow activated, sending them back into piles of bones. The other half, the stronger half, would reach him to attack, only to fall again when another Mass Healing was off cooldown. He was injured a few more times by these stubborn skeletons as he had to switch his Fields, and one time he thought he was going to die when the Boss cast another cloud at him, but he managed to protect himself with another Field as he ran out of its coverage area and had a Mass Healing to help heal the damage that had been done to him.

As The Bone Defiler was looking ragged and seemed to be down to nearly nothing Healthwise, Thaden nearly died again as it began to rapid-fire necrotic projectiles, changing up its pattern. That happened just before the skeleton abominations began to explode once they got close to him. At one point he was impaled by shards of bone that took him to the ground, with barely any Health left in his body; again, he was saved by his Aura, Regeneration, and a timely Mass Healing. If it hadn’t been for the latter spell, he probably would’ve died a dozen times over during the battle.

In the end, the attrition against the Boss’ Health was too much for it, and with a torturous cry of despair and anger, Arpath, The Bone Defiler collapsed into a heap of bone dust. Its plan to break out of the dungeon waylaid by a single Assistant Healer who barely knew what they were doing, and just happened to be 19 Levels weaker than it.

Ha ha, sucks to be you.

“Ugh… I think I need to rest.”

Without any other thought in his head, Thaden laid himself down on the floor of the Boss room…

…and took a nap.