Collide Gamer

Chapter 145 – Great strides towards the end (Thursday 3/7)

The hunched over Vessel was a muscular man. The upper body had runes of blood painted on the sickly grey skin while the tattered remains of mismatched robes covered the lower half, secured by a thick black whip tied into a makeshift belt. The Vessel held a staff made of rusty metal in one hand and a short knife in the other.

The Vessel was a pretty hard boss, all things considered. They were fighting the Floor 9 version for the third time now. The fight against the Vessel was long-winded and dangerous, however it had yielded John three ‘Key of Forgotten Sins’ already, which he was keeping to use on the tenth floor as they did indeed have the ‘Revealer of Secrets’ attribute. To be exact it was ‘Revealer of Secrets 2’, which added a bit of context to the attribute, informing him that this key would only work on Secret Rooms of the Core Floor 10 or lower in difficulty.

‘Which in its entirety just means that I cannot farm easy bosses to get keys for higher level Secret Rooms,’ John thought as he waited for the Vessel to enter his first phase. As per usual with the bosses his Gamer ability spawned, it was invulnerable before that.

The Vessel had three phases, symbolized by where the knife was currently resting inside his body. The first phase started with the Vessel stabbing his staff-holding arm. Black blood oozed from the wound and dripped to the ground.

In the first phase the Vessel summoned things called Bloodworms, these were pretty harmless if taken care of early, as leaving them alone would make them grow. The kicker however was that they were literally impossible to kill. Damage only served to keep them small. They only died once the boss did, therefore at least one person always needed to deal with the Bloodworms. Salamander usually took that job.

“Gruuuaaahh,” the Vessel's ghoulish cry echoed over the battlefield, a plateau of dark grey stone atop a tall pillar, connected to other ones like it through bridges of spikey rocks. The Demon dungeon reminded John a lot of the ones in Diablo 3. Actually, the same was true for the Angels, but that was a matter for another time.

The blood oozing from the wound dripped to the ground, all of it crawling towards the first Bloodworm that had formed which Salamander kept under constant fire so it wouldn’t grow. This would work until the start of Phase 3, so John left her to it and instead ran towards the Vessel. The staff it carried made it immune to ranged attacks, this made Sylph useless for the most part, which was why the tempest elemental just hung around and conserved her mana until Phase 2 rolled around. It also meant that John had to bust out the Mana Blade Spell.

“Undine!” he said as he conjured the blade, sending some of his mana through the water elemental and getting it back a moment later, imbued with her properties.

The short blade of deep blue appeared around his hand, its base around his wrist. The Vessel was immune to ranged attacks but it was also slow and weak, making him an easy target for melee attacks. It was therefore his and Aclysia’s job to wound the boss in this first phase while the other elementals kept back, with the exception of Undine who came with him to imbue his Mana Blade with the water property, as that dealt extra damage to the Vessel.

Aclysia was the first to strike the boss, unsurprisingly, her combat stats remained miles above his.

Her blade delivered a blunt blow to the being’s chest, Aclysia using the flat side of Ashkandi. This was due to the Bloodworm, every skin-breaking injury the vessel took in phase one would spawn another one of the things so their goal was instead to clobberclubber the boss into the next phase.

“Hrtzrkr Jhrtarzk Kur’krul,” the Vessel mumbled something stereotypically demonic even as the broad side of John’s blade glided through him. Mana Blade was an awesome skill for several reasons. It had two applications, one was physical and one was arcane wounds, the latter dealt a lot less damage to people but it was awesome at ignoring most armour, only enchanted ones being in the way. The next reason was the range of application, limited only by his mana supply. While the costs rose exponentially the longer the blade got, at the half-metre length it cost him only 20 mana and an additional 50% for an added property, like water, right now.

While the Mana Blade only lasted three seconds that was more than enough time to get a hit in and because he could change the length and property as needed it was incredibly versatile. If he had gotten the Skill earlier he would have probably specialized as a melee fighter. With Aclysia being optimized to take the role for him and the rest of his kit being fairly solid, that pivot was highly unlikely.

“Analea hurhjartk, HRADATRZT,” a shockwave forced both John and Aclysia back, dealing 10% health damage to both of them. This skill was another reason why the fight was properly hard, the boss dealt maximum health damage. While this was of little concern to Aclysia or any of his elementals, John himself had very little combat regeneration, his shield easily took the hit but nevertheless they couldn’t allow him to use that ability too often.

The shockwave wasn’t the only part of that skill either, several of the runes on the Vessel's body lit up, dark energy crackling and then unloading in an arch of tainted lightning that hit the ground. Three Imps spawned, knee-high, furry beasts with big noses and even bigger teeth that jumped towards John. “Gnome!”

“I-I got it!” The stone elemental answered with mustered courage and isolated the three minor demons from John and Aclysia with the erection of a small stone arena where she could take them out on her own.

They continued dealing damage to the Vessel this way, Sylph commentating on the whole thing from above. “Aaaaand Aclysia executes a brilliant overhead strike, bludgeoning the opponent’s head but he just keeps chanting, man, I mean, to keep talking when you’re being demolished like that from a woman made from metal, libido and dragon scales is pretty remarkable, wuuu-ii. Johnnie swing those arms a bit more, should have raised Strength instead. ‘But I need more mana,’ he said, ‘to use my Skills more,’ he said, should have learnt how to properly smack the guy over the head, I tell you. THERE GOES THE SECOND SHOCKWAVE, can they stop him from using a third, oh yeah, they can that was the phase change wave, finally.”

The Vessel ripped the knife out of his arm and rammed it into his solar plexus. He went limp for a moment then he leaned back and hovered. The arms stretched outwards, his staff left his hand and teleported behind the Vessel's back. It looked like a very cheap crucifixion, especially after a second wound opened on his arms, both of which caused more blood to ooze out and a second Bloodworm to form.

The second phase added another ticking timer, the Vessel would cast the max HP shockwave every 20 seconds while the growth of the Bloodworms was also increased in this phase. “Something to do!” Sylph enthusiastically shouted and started her job of keeping the second Bloodworm small with lightning attacks.

“Ghurtztka Ghurtzka!” the vessel shouted, his voice several tones deeper and echoing. More Imps spawned.

The vessel was still immune to ranged attacks in this phase but didn’t hover high enough to be out of range for their melee attacks. Basically, the strategy here was the same as in phase 1, Sylph and Salamander kept the Bloodworms from growing. Gnome was to defeat the Imps, while Undine, John and Aclysia kept damaging the boss. Unlike the first phase however the Bloodworms now grew faster than the two could damage them without John’s mana as support.

‘This boss fight is a giant DPS-check,’ John thought as he kept hacking at the Vessel's torso. On lower floors they out levelled the boss and a DPS-check one outclasses in terms of Stats was typically phenomenally easy. They could even ignore the Bloodworms at floors 6 and 7, simply because they didn’t become big enough to be a threat before the boss bit the dust.

John kept a close eye on his Mana Protection, once the pre-emptive shield was depleted, he would have to deactivate the skill, otherwise a single shockwave would rip most of his mana away and he needed that for the final phase, which they were about to enter.

“Grrrrrrrrr,” the Vessel growled and gripped the knife’s handle with both hands. In a scream of pain, he ripped it out and then, in a disgusting display of raw brutality, rammed it into his forehead. Again, he went limp. Then the black blood ran from the wound and covered the weapon, hiding it under a growing crystalline structure that looked like a horn.

The Vessel’s body swelled, muscles bulged to massive proportions, partially ripping apart the skin. The boss grew to three metres tall, a demonic goliath with skin as red as the runes that covered it stood before them.

The last phase of the boss fight was the simplest mechanically. Bloodworms would spawn and grow at a constant rate; however, the boss was also killing himself by doing so. The Bloodworms would not only attack John and his group but also try to return to the Vessel and heal him. That was the main reason for keeping the Bloodworms in earlier phases as small as possible, because in this last phase the boss emitted an aura that dealt constant max-HP damage. It was a race against time.

On the plus side, the boss was no longer immune to ranged attacks. “Everyone, concentrate on the boss!” he instructed.

 “We know, we did this before!” Salamander reprimanded, everyone already moving in the familiar patterns.

First was Gnome. She had used her abilities as little as possible while fighting the Imps just to have enough mana to create and maintain shackles around the Vessel's feet. The classic strategy robbed the boss of the mobility it would have needed in order to escape the triple attack executed by Sylph, Salamander and Aclysia. The former two got a respective half of John’s remaining mana. Standing to each side of the boss they covered his body in cutting winds and scorching flames. Aclysia, with her extreme resistance against elemental attacks, jumped into this unleashed fury without a worry and now took stabs at the boss without any care for more Bloodworms.

The sheer brutality and coordination led to a swift, uneventful end of the Vessel.

“Whoooo,” John breathed out when the boss, and the Bloodworms along with it, disappeared. “Okay, I think we have nailed the strategy this time, good job everyone.”

Earlier tries had them spawn Bloodworms on purpose in order to spread their growing out or going for a more grindy style of fight, while they won both of those it hadn’t been nearly as clean as this kill.

“Burst is king it seems,” John mused as five metres in front of him a swirling red and black portal opened, inviting him to the tenth floor. They had declined in the previous two attempts but now John felt somewhat confident. “Do we want to try?”