Chapter 61. The Final Boss

  “Faster,” Clarity yelled.

  We piled into the room, spreading out to prevent taking massive AOE damage.

  Clarity sat on the throne at the back of the room, blazing through books. Except that Clarity didn’t look like a mirror image of me anymore. She had long hair and elven ears with a set of goggles on her head meant for magnifying tiny objects.

  “Is that Dread?” Rowan asked.

  Clarity stood up, distracted from her task. She looked exactly like Dread.

  “It’s an illusion,” I said. “Look at the buff.” On Clarity’s portrait, the icon of the mask identified her as Disguised. “But how she knows who Dread is, I have no idea.”

  The room looked like an assembly line. Lines of carts were set up in front of Clarity, each of them filled with books. Ghostly librarians worked the process to make sure that Clarity never had to wait to start reading another book. They all paused, looking at us.

  “Halt,” Clarity said in Dread’s voice. “We have visitors.”

  I took stock of the room. I hadn’t noticed the giant vats of liquid the first time that I was here, perhaps because I was so distracted by the power core in the center of the space. Or the excitement of the moment. But Arthur was correct. Five tanks sat behind Clarity: one green, one blue, one red, one yellow, and one purple.

  “You’re interrupting my work at a most inopportune time,” Clarity said. “Would you mind coming back later?”

  We looked at each other, confused.

  “Umm no,” Arthur said. “This time works best for us. Thanks.”

  “Unfortunately,” Clarity said, “I’m busy. But you can meet with my staff.” She went back to reading.

  Mobs poured out of side rooms from the dungeon, gathering themselves into teams of five. There were four of these groups in total, each with the following composition: an Undead Bear, a Harpy Witch, a Librarian, a Skeletal Rogue, and a Spectral Priest. All Level 19’s. All Elites. The scariest part was the synergy. They had a tank, a healer, two caster DPS, and a melee DPS. A setup that would require coordination on our part that we had not yet practiced.

  One group came from each of the opposite sides of the room, converging on us.

  “Split into groups,” Arthur said, pointing to each direction. “Rowan’s team take that group. Thomas, take that one. Vivian, your group that way. My group, with me.”

  “Focus on the Priests first,” Janica called out.

  As the room became controlled chaos, I pulled out my drum and played the opening to “Billy Jean” by Michael Jackson. The iconic drum opening had an immediate effect, and I noticed that even Rowan had a positive reaction to it. A buff appeared raid-wide.

  Upbeat Rhythm. 5% increase to Constitution and Swagger.

  I continued to play as I moved toward my section of the room. Around me, people moved with purpose, their steps almost dance-like. Forget the enormous, ghostly bears stomping and growling about the room; when Michael Jackson was on, people danced. I even heard Arthur holler out the opening line “She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene,” before the undead threat to my group forced me to put my drum away.

  Rowan ran at the Bear in our corner of the room, her shield up in front of her.

  The Bear and Skeletal Rogue went at her. The Librarian, Witch, and Priest all stood at range, keeping distance from us. Their hands wove in sign language while Latin slipped from their lips. Spells were incoming.

  This was a five versus five battle with tanks, healers, physical fighters and casters. Probably the most dangerous fight that I had been a part of due to the variety of Job types and roles. Almost like a player versus player brawl. And in this setting, crowd control was king.

  “We need to burst down the casters,” I said. “Starting with the Priest.”

  “Right behind you,” Cassandra said. She no longer carried knives. Instead, claws protruded from between her knuckles.

  I flanked around the melee and positioned myself halfway between their melee fighters and their casters. A highly risky position. I casted Frost Nova, freezing the Bear and the Rogue behind me for four seconds. Two buffs appeared next to Upbeat Rhythm on my interface, the effects of my gear set and Elementalist passive.

  10% increased critical strike chance and movement speed for 8 seconds.

  3% critical strike chance for 10 seconds. Resets if you gain a critical strike.

  The Witch and Librarian focused on me, directing whatever spells they were casting my way.

  “Ignore the melee!” I shouted.

  Janica and Rowan sidestepped the Bear and the Rogue and both charged at the group of casters, stunning them.

  The Bear and Rogue screamed in rage, but they were stuck in my Frost Nova.

  Cassandra had been sneaking around to the rear of the casters from the first moment. Right after Janica charged in, Cassandra lunged at the Priest, her claws scraping across its throat, cutting its health down by 20%.

  The casters split, trying to get away from Rowan and Janica. But Janica swiped with her sword, adding a bleed effect and slowing them down. The Witch pulled her hood back, revealing a terrifying face that reminded me of something from a horror movie.

  Janica, Cassandra, and Rowan all turned, involuntarily, and fled directly away from the Witch. Each had a debuff over their portraits.

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  Feared for 8 seconds.

  The Librarian began pulling pages out of a book and flicking them at me. Paper flew through the air in slight arcs, one after another. It reminded me of this kid back in high school who whipped playing cards at other students when the teacher wasn’t looking. Except that these pages hurt. One sliced across my leg, opening up a gash. I started bleeding. I yelped in pain. Papercuts!

  Papers continued to fly at me, and I dodged to the right, my speed buff giving me the edge I needed to escape.

  The priest was down to 40% health from the barrage of our melee, and began casting something that, from his sign language, looked like a big heal on himself. He had a 50% healing debuff from Cassandra’s Werecat Skills, but if he got that heal off, it would set our dps back significantly. And with worse positioning. Another paper flew at me. I dodged again, then zapped the priest, doing only six damage but interrupting his cast. My Elementalist buff doubled to 20%.

  I casted Fire on the priest. A debuff appeared on his portrait.

  116 Fire damage over 7 seconds.

  That Fire would do over half his health. My Elementalist buff triggered again, now adding 30% critical strike chance and movement speed. With all of my buffs, I had almost a 60% chance to crit.

  The Priest recovered from his stun and started casting another heal. My Zap spell was on cooldown, so instead of going after the Priest, I cast Fire on the Librarian and then on the Witch. It was time to spread the damage around. Both spells crit.

  232 Fire Damage over 7 seconds.

  232 Fire Damage over 7 seconds.

  I shot a glance at my mana bar. 120/170. My four-set bonus had saved half the mana on those crits. I casted a Fire spell on the Priest just as his heal landed, sending his health back to 80%. But he now had two stacks of fire.

  “Help!” Kab squealed from behind me. He had retreated to the edge of the room. The Bear and the Rogue had broken loose and were going after him.

  I ran after them at 30% increased speed and casted another Frost Nova, locking them both in place for four more seconds.

  The fear finally broke on Cassandra, Rowan and Janica.

  Janica acted first, charging at the Priest and stunning him mid-heal. The effect was perfectly timed as all three of the casters were below 30% and falling fast due to my fire spells.

  Cassandra took the Witch while Rowan took the Librarian.

  In two seconds, they both fell, overwhelmed by my damage. A second later, the Priest fell.

  Our melee went at their melee, and a brawl ensued. But they were outnumbered three to one. And we had a healer.

  I went back and forth between the other five versus five matchups that occurred next to us, trying to figure out where to go next. Rather than use my mana against the Rogue and Bear, who would die anyway, I thought it best I support other groups.

  To my right, Arthur stood in the center of four mobs, blocking their attacks and spells. He had multiple HOTs rolling on him. His body shone with a gold light that seemed to be getting brighter. I looked at his buffs. Besides Upbeat Rhythm and Rejuvenate, there was one I hadn’t seen before.

  Body of Gold x 16. Each damaging effect adds a stack of Body of Gold to the target, stacking up to 20 times. Each stack increases damage reflected by 2%. When Body of Gold reaches 20 stacks, it explodes, dealing S damage to all targets within 8 yards.

  The rest of his team seemed to be supporting him, silencing and crowd controlling the casters, casting heal and support spells on him, and buffing his damage. It was a strategy that I hadn’t seen before. An all-out focus on making a single member of the party as strong as possible. Yet, it seemed to be working. His health never dipped below 80% and every single mob was attacking him.

  Clearly, Arthur’s group wasn’t in any dire need of help.

  On my left, a far different story unfolded. Thomas stood before the Bear and the Rogue, shielding their attacks with a shield in each hand. And while his health barely dropped, even without any HOTs on him, the group was in chaos. Their healer lay dead on the ground as well as their melee fighter. Christian had been caught in the middle of a fear, and I saw him on the far side of the room. Raspberry, the Pyromancer, dodged back and forth as the Librarian as he pelted her with book pages. Her health neared 40% and she had multiple bleed effects on her from paper cuts.

  “Janica,” I yelled. “Over here!”

  I zapped the Librarian, stunning it right before it flung a page at Raspberry. I followed up with a Fire. Then another. The second one crit, and a yellow 33 floated over its head. Another crit one second later.

  I caught the Librarian in a Frost Nova, then ran away from it at 30% increased speed, out of his range.

  “Raspberry,” I hollered. “Let’s overwhelm the healer.”

  With my crit stacked around 60% again, it was time to cause some havoc. In four successive casts, I put a Fire spell on the Bear, the Rogue, the Witch, and the Healer. Two of them crit, returning half the mana, but I was getting low. My mana was down to 14/178. I cursed. If I hadn't died, I’d be swimming in mana. I needed to stop casting for a good long while, and let my mana regenerate for the next part of the fight.

  Raspberry had followed my lead. She threw a Fire spell onto all four of the same targets. But she was out of mana as well.

  The Skeletal Priest furiously casted spells, but it was clear that he couldn’t keep up with our stacked Fire spells.

  Janica charged the Priest, stunning him for three seconds. And five seconds after that, every one of the mobs in that group lay dead on the ground.

  Christian nodded at me, the first positive recognition that I’d had from him since betraying him on the first day. It was a small gesture, but it mattered.

  “Thanks,” Thomas said. “That went south fast. The Witch cc’d our Healer while the Librarian and Rogue focused him down. I couldn’t keep the aggro of the casters and the melee.”

  After that, the fight started to snowball in our favor. Rowan and Cassandra finished off the Bear and the Rogue from our initial fight, then went to join Arthur’s group and help them finish off the mobs. Kab came over toward Thomas’s group, healing that group up to full.

  We joined the last of the four groups, with Vivian as the tank. They had lost a melee fighter, but Thunder and Lightning worked as a dynamic team, crowd controlling the opposition with stuns and spreading their electrical spells by zapping wet mobs.

  When the last mob fell, Clarity stood up from their position. “Very well,” Clarity said, in Dread’s voice. “You’ve caught my attention. My staff couldn’t seem to handle you, but at least they’ve softened you up a bit.” She raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

  She was right. We had lost two melee dps and a healer. Looking at everyone’s status on my raid interface, it wasn’t just the deaths that had hurt us. Several casters were at half mana, which was strange. I had depleted my own mana bar, but with five mana regeneration per second, it should have regenerated to nearly full again. And then I noticed the debuff. Oh damn…