Chapter 216: Kir’mogan

If your opponent is mighty, do not stand in the way of her fist.

- Kamari Ren, Ahn Khen Elder, legendary master and inheritor of the Ninefold Way: Fists of Coherent Integrity.

Calen

Calen darted along the path, dodging the patches of brilliant sunshine that had begun filtering through the dense jungle canopy. His stealth skills worked in the light, but they were better in shadows. He scanned the overgrowth, ignoring the industrious squirrels who hadn’t sensed his presence. He skirted the gruesome Grim Totems; like the squirrels, he gave them a wide berth, never letting his focus and vigilance falter for even one moment.

But it was hard to ignore the changes to the jungle itself as he progressed. Something is different. The jungle was becoming less densely packed; there were just as many trees, but much of the thick undergrowth seemed to have been cleared, making room for more Grim Totems to sprout among the enormous boles and gnarled, moss-covered roots. Here and there, partially intact skeletons lay discarded, many of them missing the skulls that seemed to have been used to cap the totems. Although the dead appeared fresh, a thick, blood-red moss already sprouted through the bones with a macabre eagerness that left heaps of thriving sanguine consumption feeding on every corpse.

Blood-Drenched Moss – Moss – level 43.

Creepy. The moss continuously leaked red fluid which was slowly absorbed into the stained ground, emitting an uncomfortably warm and cloying aura. Perhaps Mato or Ali can look at it. He wasn’t about to get close to something that unnatural.

Rounding a bend in the trail, it widened, and in moments the jungle gave way to a broad sunlit clearing. A thick wall of giant rib-like bones presented a dam to hold back the heavy press of the encroaching jungle. Several primitive-looking buildings dotted the clearing, constructed from rough-hewn stone, and chinked with more of that weeping red moss.

[Explorer] You have discovered the Temple of Bone.
Your actions have increased the reputation of your patron.
You have gained the Blessing of the Wanderer.

This had happened several times already while exploring the Temple of Aman Rak. It seemed he wouldn’t need to spend many coins to keep his blessing – his patron deity must care deeply about exploring this new dungeon.

In total silence, he slipped through the gap in the enclosing bone wall, following the trail into the primitive troll dwelling, but then he froze as he caught sight of what waited in the center.

A heavy bone altar had been constructed in the middle of what might have passed for the center of this tiny hamlet, surrounded by clumps of small blueish flowers that swayed eerily in a non-existent breeze. Jagged edges of bone jutted out from the darkly stained surface. The stains grew denser closer to the ground, leaving a patch of pure black surrounding the ominous artifact. But it was the dense miasma and palpable light-consuming darkness that pulsed from it that sent chills down Calen’s spine.

Out by the altar, several figures moved, dragging bodies toward the stained circle of ground, crushing wide swathes of the pretty blue flowers.

Kir’mogan [The Brutal Blade] – Troll – level 81
Warrior – Troll – level 64-67 x2.
Shaman – Troll – level 73-74 x2.

[Explorer]
Category: Dungeon Boss
Threat Level: Raid
Monster Type: Troll, Unique
Damage: Physical, Bone
Known Abilities: Minions (4)

The first thing he noticed was that they were not undead.

The second thing he noticed was the writhing form of a low-level Troll staked to the altar.

Shaman – Troll – level 12.

There was a great surge of black energy arcing from the dark-stained bone altar, and the helpless Troll let out a bloodcurdling scream. From every crushed flower, a new gray-rimmed black one sprouted in an outward ripple of growth. Calen stared in confusion, unable to comprehend why the trolls were torturing each other, and then suddenly he realized the awful truth; the young troll suffering on the dark altar was not a dungeon monster. As he watched, powerless to interrupt the ritual, the energy pulsed out from the altar, ripping skeletons from the corpses strewn about and imbuing them with a ghastly mockery of life.

In a din of rattling and clacking of bones, the skeletons clambered to their feet and began marching toward the trail to the blood-curdling sound of Kir’mogan’s cruel laughter. Calen swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat and fled the bone temple and the unholy ritual he had just witnessed. He needed to get the others – and he needed to get to them before the undead did.

Aliandra

Ali walked down the center of the trail while the group cautiously advanced through the dense jungle. It was a jungle entirely unlike the roiling chaos of the wild mana zone under the ruins of Dal’mohra, sharing only a verdancy and abundance of growth. The trees here did not directly contribute to the ambient mana. Instead, the thick stench of blood mana bored into her nostrils even though she was smelling it by proxy. The fountains of dry bone-affinity mana pouring from the Grim Totems scraped across her skin like an enveloping hug from a skeleton.

Ali shivered, glancing up at the two Troll Bone Warriors flanking her, taking a little solace in the coiled, ready power in their bodies, and the confident arrogance of their stride.

“Fan out,” she instructed, directing the rest of her minion army to spread out and take advantage of the thinning undergrowth. She flitted through points of view, making certain that nothing would surprise them while Calen was out scouting. Malika and Mato both had potent perception skills to warn them of danger, but both were short-to-medium range. On the other hand, Ali’s minions put a broad and diverse set of senses at her disposal: from the heat vision of her imp to the blood scent of her stalkers. She might not have Calen’s eyes or Explorer skill, but she could create a fine net of perception that would be hard for most threats to evade.

“What do you think of this, Ali?” Mato asked, squatting down beside a large Grim Totem and the skeletal remains of a troll corpse lying on the ground beside it. He was poking at something, watching a trickle of viscous red fluid.

Blood-Drenched Moss – level 43 (Blood)

“Ugh, that’s repulsive,” Ali said, staring at the moss that was spreading over and even through the bones, leaking a liquid that spilled onto the ground, staining it crimson.

“Mhm…” Mato said, still studying it closely.

“Is that real blood?” Ali asked. While she voiced the question, it was redundant. She had no need for Mato to confirm it – her Abyssal Stalkers could smell it from across the path. Not only that, but the moss was seeping red blood-affinity mana that twisted and swirled in transient ribbons before blending with the bone mana from the nearby Grim Totem to produce the complex paired mana structure for the Temple of Aman Rak’s domain.

“I’m going to collect some samples for Basil and Eliyen, just in case it’s valuable,” Mato said. Then he glanced up, meeting her gaze, “You have a moss imprint, right?”

“Yes,” Ali said. She had been half hoping he would forget – she didn’t relish the idea of learning an icky moss that leaked blood, but he was right – almost invariably, all plants with a mana affinity of some kind had substantial value to the herbalists, and if they could turn it into something helpful, it would be worth the sacrifice.

She bent down and reached out toward the red moss, grimacing at the sense of warm wetness assaulting her fingertips, but she completed her task properly, deconstructing several good samples until her Grimoire reacted.

Variant: Blood-Drenched Moss added to Imprint: Moss.

Suddenly she looked up as she caught the powerful scent of pumping blood on the path up ahead. The heat outline of his sprinting body gave Calen away, even in stealth. Since his last advancement, she could no longer see his mana, but behind him, she could clearly make out the knots of death-affinity mana heralding the approaching undead.

“Incoming,” Ali announced. Malika sprang to her feet, taking her cue from Ali’s gaze and immediately facing that direction in a defensive stance. Mato transformed into his Bear Form before he even got up from his crouch. “Undead. Chasing Calen.” She readied her minions and made a barrier pop into existence between her and the new threat.

The clacking of bones filtered strangely muted through the trees as six skeletons rounded the bend, running right into Mato’s roaring charge. The trail thumped and shook as the enormous Armored Drake and Forest Guardian waded into the fray.

“Go,” Ali said, imbuing her words with images of intent, communicating with her Troll Warriors the same way she did with elementals and beasts. Unleashed from the bow of her will, they shot forward, leaving a bizarre crackling rupture of bone spines that burst from their footprints. Ridges and plates of bone sprouted rapidly from their exposed skin, forming heavy articulated armor that covered the vulnerable joints, neck, and abdomen. They crashed bodily into the skeletons with a loud crunching sound and unleashed a flurry of bladed slashes.

Ali studied her trolls carefully using Martial Insight to experience their unique combat in first person. They’re powerful, she thought as Sage of Learning drained mana rapidly, cataloging moves and techniques, balance and momentum. Ali’s mind flickered with patterns and memories as her body experienced the forms while her skill drew upon her memories of sparring with Malika to connect similar techniques. Their martial abilities were remarkably similar to Malika’s punching techniques, perhaps because the tonfa blades ran the length of their forearms, protruding a little beyond the elbow and past the hands, making their weapons ideal for punches and elbow strikes, in addition to the obvious slashing attacks. In a few moments, she began experimenting, mixing in a little of the extraordinary Ahn Khen footwork to enhance the power of their blows, but the fight was over too quickly for her to make much progress. The Armored Drake more or less stomped the lower-level skeletons into bone shards and incinerated whatever it didn’t crush or shatter.

“Come quickly,” Calen said breathlessly. “I found a raid boss. They’re torturing a Troll, probably a young one.”

“What?” Ali asked, Calen’s words not making a whole lot of sense.

“She’s not a dungeon monster,” he said, and suddenly his meaning was clear.

“Fuck, let’s go!” Ali said, hopping onto a barrier and shooting off after her friends as everyone sprinted down the trail.

“Boss abilities?” Malika asked.

“Eighty-one unique melee Troll with a greataxe. Two shamans, two extra warriors,” Calen said, summarizing quickly.

“Two shamans…” Malika murmured, her mouth pressing into a firm line.

“Kill them first,” Calen said. “And be careful, yes.”

While they hashed out strategy in short gasps, Ali rounded a bend as the trail took a turn around a particularly massive tree and then she stopped, suddenly struggling to keep her stomach from emptying its contents onto the mossy ground.

Up ahead, the road entered a broad clearing with several stone huts, partially overgrown with bloody moss. The fences and roofs seemed to be constructed entirely from the left-over bones of some giant monster. But in the center of it all was a dark stained altar made from bone and surrounded by many Grim Totems. The altar glowed with an ominously dense death mana and strewn all about on the ground were the dismembered and hacked-up corpses of trolls lying strewn across a carpet of strange blue or black flowers.

A large troll warrior casually rested a vicious bone axe taller than Mato on his right shoulder, the haft gripped with a hand that looked like it could crush boulders with ease. He looked on with a cruel smile as his minions tormented a troll that was staked to the bone altar with heavy metal spikes. From the feeble struggles, and her healer’s sight, she could tell the staked Troll was barely clinging on, at the brink of death.

Mato paused at the entrance, giving everyone a moment to catch up and collect themselves.

“We need to go now if we want to save her,” Malika said, her face grim, no doubt uncomfortable with being forced to charge into an unknown raid encounter without any time to prepare.

Ali studied the battlefield, identifying the trolls with a glance.

Kir’mogan [The Brutal Blade] – Troll – level 81 (Bone).
Warrior – Troll – level 64-67 (Bone) x2.
Shaman – Troll – level 73-74 (Blood) x2.
Shaman – Troll – level 12 (Blood).

“The area around the altar is brimming with death mana, I don’t recommend going anywhere near that,” she warned, as if the screaming troll wasn’t enough of a deterrent.

“Mato tank everything, Malika pull the shamans out, we’ll kill those first,” Calen said. “Be ready for Bloodlust. Keep your recall potions handy, this might get rough. Simple.”

Malika grimaced, “Simply stupid, but I’m in. Let’s do this.”

Mato growled, and Calen lit his bow on fire. Already among the stone houses, Ali made her Abyssal Stalkers vanish from sight.

Mato

“Getting the big guy,” Calen said, raising his bow and drawing it to its fullest power.

A howl of hellfire drowned out the wailing as four bright arrows shot across the clearing, delivering their searing payload to the dangerous-looking Troll party gathered by the altar and interrupting their questionable activities. Angry shouts, unintelligible to Mato’s ears, rose above the din and screaming as the boss whipped about and his minions instantly gave chase.

A sudden storm of whirling axes filled the air, but Mato ignored the splintering cracks as they bounced off golden barriers. He charged. With a burst of momentum, he shot through the center of the sprinting troll group, his eyes locked onto Kir’mogan. Before the troll could raise that almighty axe, he met the boss with a loud crash out in the open, a safe distance from the horrific bone altar and its struggling sacrifice.

As the shaman and warrior minions barreled past him, he lashed out in retaliation, instant crushing strikes of his claws inflicting devastating gashes and sprouting heavy tangling roots that stopped the trolls in their tracks. Instantly, a garishly painted totem appeared, and the Trolls slipped their bindings.

Oh no, you don’t. Mato unleashed a Challenging Roar that echoed throughout the Bone Temple, and everything turned toward him.

“Mato has them,” Calen announced calmly in the background.

“This target,” Malika said, appearing beside him, her fists wreathed with blue-white light as she danced.

Mato Swiped, unleashing his claws. His enhanced sense of hearing picked up the faint sizzle of ionizing air even before he heard the chime, and he saw the tiny trails of blacker-than-black. Yes! Immediately, he loaded his strike with Brutal Restoration and Bestial Combat.

You have gained Azryet’s Favor
The Calamity smiles upon your actions.
Your attacks gain additional Void damage on hit.
Blessing – Duration: 1 second.

His claws ripped through the heavy bone armor grown by the trolls, spraying blood and shards that gleamed in the mid-afternoon sunlight, the additional void magic bypassing hastily-raised shields and slicing through leather armor like gossamer veils.

Thanks for the damage! In truth, it was an extremely fortuitous time to gain Azryet’s Favor. The beginning of any encounter was typically the most chaotic, unstable, and the most likely time for him to lose control of one of the monsters, resulting in a rampage through his less robust allies, and a mad scramble to recover. A clean strike locked his foes’ attention upon him as solidly as his Challenging Roar.

Mato juggled positions as Ali’s minions began to arrive, flexing his mana through his aura, growing vines and roots to tangle his enemies. The Shamans reacted with more totems, ignoring his Rampant Growth; the brambles and vines magically finding no purchase on their ankles and legs. He struck again, this time his claws struggling to penetrate the armor and reach the dexterous warriors with their insane evasion.

The leather stretched over Kir’mogan’s self-grown bone armor and creaked ominously as the boss drew back his giant axe. Trusting the prickle of his danger senses, Mato shifted to block the warrior’s powerful but slow overhead strike, instead taking the low slashing blade of the blood-drenched axe wielded by the shaman wearing the garishly painted red and yellow bone mask.

He grunted at the impact of the greataxe crashing down on his shoulder plates, deflected to the ground, and winced as the shaman’s blade found a gap in his armor.

You have been cursed with Vampiric Hex
+12 blood magic damage per second.
+25% vulnerability to bleeding.
Attackers gain health on hit.
Duration refreshed on hit with Blood Magic.
Curse – Duration: 30 seconds.

You have been afflicted with Bleeding.
+10 damage per second.
Physical – Duration: 1 minute, 20 seconds.

Mato was treated to the disturbing sight of his blood trailing away in the air, sucked up by the blood-stained shaman totem planted in the ground nearby.

The boss’s axe blurred, and this time Survival Instinct did not just prickle, it screamed. Mato shifted to the side, trying to block, but he was too slow to react, and the gleaming blade sliced clean through his shoulder, sundering bands of armor and ripping open a two-foot-long gash through his torso, continuing through to smash into the ground. He was launched into the air by the recoil of the crater the strike left, blood spraying into the air in a great fountain.

You have been afflicted with Mortal Wounds
-50% to Health gained.
Physical – Duration: 30 seconds.

Shit! He fooled me with that first hit. He had lost a quarter of his health in a single stroke, and, already, the dramatic reduction in his brutal restoration was taking its toll. Holy magic settled upon him, but it too was severely diminished by the Mortal Wounds debuff. But the trolls were only beginning. The three warriors began to accelerate as their haste took effect. Mato backed up slowly, desperately trying to pick out the most dangerous attacks to block as his health fell to the onslaught.

Malika announced her arrival with a slap on his flank and a vast surge of healing magic that closed the gaping gash at what must have been an exorbitant cost to her stamina. “Healing reduction!” Malika shouted, clearly sensing the problem with her healing skill, and Mato obliged by sharing the Mortal Wounds details.

Malika quickly tore into the masked shaman with a series of furious strikes, peeling it off him quickly, and stepping away from the group. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw all of Ali’s minions grouping up on the shaman Malika had split off, and then his attention returned, focusing on his own fight.

His health had dwindled to below half before Mato realized that he was losing the battle to Mortal Wounds. Ali’s Acolytes were furiously healing him, and his Brutal Restoration was working full out, but as the powerful warrior and his minions accelerated their haste, the bleeds stacked up and his health continued to decline. With Malika fully occupied with the other shaman, there wasn’t enough healing to overcome the ridiculous debuff. He kept a close eye on that ridiculous overpowered strike that the boss could unleash, but even with the craters left on the ground, the boss still found some canny way to refresh Mortal Wounds before it expired, every single time.

Reflexively, he checked his recall potion, finding it in his storage, and then he backed up a little, edging closer to Ali’s Drake and the ability to call for help. He channeled more mana into his plants, but the trolls seemed to effortlessly slip out of his grasp, barely inconvenienced by his magic, making his retreat painstakingly slow.

A pulse of pure wrongness burst from the altar, crashing into his sanctuary aura, raising his hackles and making him growl. In answer, he heard the sepulchral groans that could only come from undead, and the troll corpses strewn about the altar twitched and writhed. And then they clawed their way to their feet, shambling and shuffling in all directions.

He was already struggling, but he knew his friends could not handle a sudden horde of zombies, so he roared, challenging everything to attack him, just hoping he was in range of all of them. The zombies groaned and, as one, they turned toward him and added their slow but powerful attacks to the hasted strikes of the warriors and the gruesome bloody slashes of the second shaman.

I need to do something. But nothing came to mind. His health was falling faster now, but the drake remained beyond his range. Still, he backed up, progressing slowly under the continuous pressure, trying to maneuver his enemies so they couldn’t surround him. As his health fell, it became increasingly risky to spend health to power Bestial Combat, and that meant he couldn’t use his armor penetration, which compounded into less damage and smaller healing from his restoration. His only option was Last Stand, and if he used that now, he would just die later when the shaman unleashed her powerful blood magic spell.

He summoned a potion to his mouth and bit down hard, ignoring the gritty flavor of earth that flowed down his throat.

You have gained Stonecap Armor.

His skin hardened at once, taking on a grayish tinge, but he still struggled to block, maneuver, or stack up more healing. Kir’mogan barked something harsh, and the gleaming greataxe blurred. The thunderous axe strike sliced through armor, stonecap, hide, and all sending pulverized rock flying from the impact crater below his feet, and Last Stand triggered automatically for the first time. Not since his first horrible fight against a Fire Mage with Ali had his health dropped below five percent, but this troll, Kir’mogan, had just forced his skill to save his life by auto-triggering.

I have thirty seconds. As soon as Last Stand dropped, he would lose all the temporary health the skill gave him and die. Unless he found a way to increase his health between now and then. Not even a recall potion could save him now. He crushed a health potion between his teeth, sacrificing the remaining duration of his Stonecap Armor.

It was halfway through his Last Stand that the explosion of blood ripped through the trolls, empowering them with the terrifying bloody visage and the gruesome dripping blood runes that floated about their heads. Their attacks suddenly accelerated to eye-blurring speed, assaulting his heavily battered armor, and even with his enhanced defenses, his health plummeted.

Good fight, Kir’mogan. He let out a ferocious roar, but it was more to throw his challenge in the face of the superior force. It would, of course, reduce their strength, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough to matter. He had heard of the battle prowess of the trolls, and now that he had faced them in person, he found the stories to be hollow mockeries of the truth. Damn, you took us out like newbies…

Just then his notification chime sounded.

You have gained Azryet’s Wrath
The Calamity smiles upon your actions.
Your attacks gain additional Holy damage on hit.
Blessing – Duration: 1 second.

He Swiped at once, risking both Brutal Restoration and one final Bestial Combat, and this time, he felt a strange warmth in his paw as it began to glow with a soft holy light. His attack slashed across all the monsters before him, ripping through the flesh of the living and dead. But every undead recoiled as the magic sizzled and spat, and he felt the sudden rush of the largest Brutal Restoration he had ever experienced. For the first time since the fight started, he felt his health begin to creep upward. He lashed out again, trying to establish more healing magic, but the random damage enchantment did not manifest again.

He heard another soft chime in the background, and suddenly Malika’s magic tore through his body in a fiery fury, and with several long seconds of hasted punches and kicks, she took the second shaman away from him. And with that, Ali’s Drake finally stepped into his Sanctuary.

“Help, kill the totem. Get distance from the shaman.” He shot a chaotic flurry of complex thoughts to the drake, hoping desperately that Ali would get it.

“Malika! Pull the shaman further away.” Ali’s voice echoing his plea was the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

As Malika pulled the shaman away, the glowing Fae flew over and deconstructed the totem poking out of the ground. It was a tense ten seconds while he blocked another ridiculous strike from the boss and his health plummeted, almost removing everything Malika had just restored. But he felt the instant the totem evaporated; his roots and grasping vines began to bind on the ankles of the zombies and lock them in place, or at least to hinder their movement. He backed up, pouring mana into Rampant Growth, and to his intense relief, most of the monsters remained stuck, slowly clawing their way free of his magic until he bound them again.

It was not a perfect plan. As soon as he backed up, Kir’mogan broke free of the roots through brute force, and the bound warriors switched to throwing axes, but the overwhelming onslaught of damage had abated. The zombies couldn’t even hit him. He slowly circled around, each time he rooted his opponents and backed away bought him a precious couple of seconds to heal.

And then something magical happened.

“Now, Ali!” Malika yelled.

Right as the troll boss unleashed his most powerful strike, three barriers appeared between Mato and the overhead blow. All three shattered, but the axe was deflected into the ground, missing him for the first time in the fight.

His Mortal Wounds dropped, and suddenly his health filled, right as Last Stand expired.

How did they – sweet! Sucking in a huge breath, Mato surged back into the fray. Come on!

Aliandra

Ali was fully focused on the shaman. Malika had pulled her away from the group and was doing an amazing job tanking it.

“Bring it out into the open a little more, Malika,” Calen said. “Ali’s monsters are big.”

As Malika shifted, Ali organized her forces around the troll, placing her Forest Guardian and Bone Warriors on the far side of the group, and prioritizing the more powerful Armored Drakes. This arrangement allowed her to use the Hellfire Imps’ fireballs more effectively.

“How are you doing?” Ali asked.

“I’m good. Bring it on,” Malika said, barely even breathing hard.

“Fireball,” Ali called, and the imp reacted with an amplified and accelerated one that shook the ground with the blast. Malika got hit, but all the rest of the minions in the carefully aimed blast radius were immune to fire. And Malika was right, she healed herself and she seemed fine.

Now, if only I could do something about that shaman avoiding the roots, she thought, searching the battlefield. There it is, she spied the Free Action totem among the miniature forest of six different totems. Quickly, she flew over to it and spent the ten or so seconds required to deconstruct the totem. As soon as it dissipated, the shaman became entangled in Mato’s roots, calling out in an annoyed voice, but just as Ali was celebrating the minor success, the shaman threw out another one and the roots began falling away.

Ali pursed her lips in annoyance. But before she could try again, two things happened simultaneously.

“Starting!” Calen yelled, indicating he was about to trigger Righteous Fury, and they would need to go all out to drop the shaman.

At the same time, the Kobold Acolytes flared with holy power. Her heart dropped at the sight of their emergency healing skill being triggered. Fearing the worst, she quickly shifted her sight to one of them, just in time to watch Mato’s health suddenly vanish and then pop up to a little below half. She stared in momentary confusion and disbelief before she realized he had been forced to use his Last Stand. No! Mato, how will you survive the bloodlust?

“Mato had to burn Last Stand,” she announced, getting a look of shock from Calen.

As if she had summoned the dreaded magic, the shaman’s blood burst into the air, arcing to every troll, accelerating them to a frenzy of power.

A blur of whirling gray crashed into her barrier, detonating in an explosion of gold and bone slivers and shards that tore through Ali’s skin, piercing her leg and ribs. The world tilted precariously as the pain slammed into her mind and she barely caught herself before she fell. With an instinct born from so much fighting, she resummoned her protective barrier before her senses had even recovered from the shock. Mato was still alive, but Kir’mogan had leveled her a hateful, bleeding-eyed gaze. He summoned another axe and threw it at her again, but this time she was ready, slamming up a second barrier in front of her bubble. It shattered both, but she caught herself deflecting most of the shrapnel this time.

“Mato’s struggling. Kill the shaman quickly,” Ali said, keeping a wary eye on the boss and his extremely potent and accurate ranged damage. The domain mana surged again, and the boss unleashed a ground-crushing strike that tore into Mato. “Devotion,” she told her nearest Acolyte, making it accelerate its healing power. Another axe flew from a distance, and she barely had enough time to throw up a barrier. But the boss’s axes were empowered by the devastating Bloodlust and the resulting explosion ripped her Acolyte to shreds.

“What’s going on?” Calen asked, his onslaught of arrows not faltering in the slightest.

“I can’t keep Mato healed,” she told him. “That Mortal Wounds refuses to drop. I think the boss’s biggest strike is refreshing it.” It had to be a domain-empowered ability.

“How long has he got?”

“Fifteen seconds on Last Stand,” she said. It was an estimate, but probably close enough.

She urged her minions on, but she knew that raid boss minions had ten times the health of a normal monster. She desperately wanted to fire her barrier shards, but again she was forced to block another flying axe, wincing as a stray bone shard sliced through her arm. But every axe Kir’mogan threw her way was one less strike Mato needed to tank. If she could just distract him for long enough…

Calen fired a powerful volley, striking the shaman just as the Hellfire Imp’s fireball detonated on it, and the streamers of blood magic that were healing it collapsed to the ground with a great splash. Three of the totems vanished into motes of mana as the magic sustaining them died with their caster.

“Heal Mato!” Ali yelled.

“I got him,” Malika said, as she charged into the fray to pick up the second shaman, her healing magic pouring into Mato the second she arrived.

Ali shifted her drake into position to cover Malika as she retreated with the second shaman, hoping to block the flying axes on its durable dragon-scale armor. As she did, she received a confusing series of images that she immediately knew had to have come from Mato and his strange ability to communicate emotions and pictures with her beast minions.

Distance the shaman? Kill totem? Oh. She kicked herself for not thinking of it before – but Mato had seldom had the opportunity to use his control skill down in the mines. The shaman’s Free Action totem was hampering him even more than it was annoying her Forest Guardian.

“Malika! Pull the shaman further away,” Ali shouted, immediately zooming down to the ground and beginning to deconstruct the frustrating totem. Malika reacted immediately, and by the time the totem evaporated, and the shaman threw out another one, it was far enough from Mato to not affect him and his root magic. Perfect.

They were not out of danger yet. Mato was still faced with two bone warriors and the devastating Kir’mogan himself, but his root magic seemed to suddenly grasp the horde of zombies, and as he backed away from them his health seemed to stabilize.

“Ali, you’re going to need to help him. Block that big attack with all your barrier magic,” Calen called over. “I’ll throw out some Grappling Shots.”

“I can’t read it,” Ali said. Domain magic was one thing, but Kir’mogan’s skill had to be a martial ability.

“I can see it,” Malika said. “On my mark.”

Ali lowered herself to the ground to free up her barrier magic and it took a few moments until she felt the domain mana surge.

“Now, Ali!” Malika yelled.

Ali had seen the attack several times now, and she was certain that an attack that left such large craters in the ground would shred her barriers like paper. But sometimes barriers could be used with a modicum of subtlety. She had used multiple barriers to slow them down when they fell down the shaft so long ago, and she had used them to successfully deflect raid boss bone spears. She summoned three barrier plates, one behind the other, all three of them between the troll boss’s massive greataxe and Mato’s head. All three angled to create a steep deflection.

The axe blurred, and the air between it and Mato exploded into golden shards of magic, followed a fraction of a second later by the explosion of a cloud of dust and chunks of rubble. But Mato’s health did not budge. Then, the acolytes’ healing spells landed on him and his health skyrocketed, and as the dust cleared, Ali saw the axe blade buried in the ground to Mato’s left side.

“Good work!” Calen said, firing a fan of arrows into their foes.

“Good call,” Ali told him as she watched in sudden relief as Mato’s health hit maximum, right as his temporary Last Stand health expired.

The boss skewered her with another hateful look and formed an axe in his powerful hand, growing the bone so fast it seemed instantaneous. He threw it with great force and unerring accuracy across the battlefield right at her face. If she hadn’t been ready, she wasn’t sure she would have been quick enough. As it was, her barrier shattered a second time, shards of bone tearing through her body despite that she had deflected the strike. Even as she felt the restoration of her Acolyte repairing her, the small sprays of her amber blood pooled in the air and streamed out across the clearing to be sucked into the shaman’s totem.

This time, Ali kept her eyes glued to Mato’s health and the boss’s uncannily accurate attacks, tossing out an occasional barrier to interfere with the strikes. The power from Righteous Fury faded, and then shortly afterward the blood runes empowering the trolls splashed down to the ground. They had less damage, but now their foes had one fewer healer. After a sequence of increasingly ferocious attacks on Mato with his blades, the bone troll grew another axe, this time sending the projectile right at Malika’s back. She dodged it without even looking, and it exploded against one of Ali’s Armored Drakes, the shards ripping through all her minions. Most of her creatures had relatively good armor and health, but the Hellfire Imps that had leapt into battle to bring their auras to bear took substantial damage from the explosive bone attack.

“Keep healing Mato,” she instructed her Acolytes. The melee group had Malika and the regeneration aura of her Forest Guardian. We’re getting there… not out of the woods yet. Keep sharp, Ali!

Amid the press of the melee, the shaman abruptly collapsed in a pool of blood, but there was no chime. Searching frantically, Ali detected a surge of blood by its scent coming from a dense patch of the Blood-Drenched Moss near one of the stone huts.

“Where is it?” Malika asked, snapping her head back and forth as she searched.

“Over there!” Ali yelled, pointing to the hut, and sent mental directives to her minions to chase the shaman. It’s not running, she thought as she realized the creature had simply bought itself time for a long heal, the ribbons of blood magic curling back from its hands and punching into its own torso as its health began to rise.

Another axe whirled across the battlefield, but this time, Ali was prepared. Her barrier flickered into existence, deflecting the deadly missile from her Acolyte. Even though her barrier shattered with the impact, her Acolyte was still able to survive the blast. With a little dose of healing magic, it began recovering and continued healing Mato.

She flew over, alighting on the blood-stained ground, and bent to deconstruct the corpse of the first shaman. While she wasn’t critically low yet, she was operating on a tight mana budget in order to bring so many minions to the battle. And she needed her mana for her barriers. With her mana refilled, she redoubled her efforts, tossing out barrier after barrier to block powerful flying bone axes or to give Mato a little breathing room.

Finally, the second shaman collapsed, landing in a pool of blood that had accumulated on the ground, and the crucial chime sounded.

“Warrior, and then the boss,” Calen reiterated their strategy. “Don’t fireball the zombies yet, Mato is using roots to keep them at bay.”

“I can help him with the Guardian,” Ali said, shifting her minions.

With both shamans down, she decided she had much more room for adjustment. She sent both drakes to tackle the zombies, making them use only their cleave attacks until they had the monsters locked down, and she used everything else to attack the warrior Malika picked, holding her imps in reserve for now. As soon as her drakes were being attacked by the zombies, and there was no chance of them breaking to harass Mato, she called for fireballs. She was quite pleased with her strategy – there were many zombies, and with the drakes being immune to fire, the fireballs worked wonders. After she allowed her drakes to breathe fire, the zombies began dying quickly.

Against the bone warrior, her Abyssal Stalkers’ blood shock and her new trolls’ heavy damage made for a devastating combination. Eager to stabilize the fight further, she sent her Forest Guardian over to help Mato. It brought its powerful regeneration and an extra helping of roots to control the remaining minions.

They settled into a careful, but much more stable fight, burning down the remaining warriors one at a time while Ali spent most of her energy blocking deadly-accurate flying axes, until finally only Kir’mogan remained.

The fight dragged on and on as they struggled to do substantial damage to the heavily armored and highly agile troll. Even though there were no more shamans healing him, the health boost he enjoyed for being domain-enhanced paired strongly with the troll’s innate regeneration. He also had the health leech on his gear. Ali carefully tracked his health, but they were struggling to make decent progress.

“He’s out of stamina,” Malika suddenly announced, after about ten solid minutes of fighting.

Ali looked again, surprised, but indeed Malika’s normally blue-white magic was unusually white, with a subtly different structure to the magical formation whenever it flickered and flashed with her punches.

Smart, she thought. She must have realized it would be a lengthy fight and switched to stamina attacks. Some of the Bone Warriors’ defensive abilities ran on mana – and there was no reason to believe Kir’mogan was any different – but their offensive capabilities were effectively neutered by Malika’s strategy. But most importantly, his ability to block required stamina. From there on, the battle turned into a drawn-out game of chase as the boss triggered its Bone Rush to get away from Malika in order to regenerate just enough stamina to throw an axe at someone. An attack Ali blocked every time – and then she followed up with Armored Drake Cleaves and Blood Shock to whittle his health down a little further.

After far too long, Kir’mogan bellowed something angrily and collapsed in a heap to the sound of a notification chime.

Your group has defeated Shaman – Troll – level 73-74 (Blood) x2.
Your group has defeated Warrior – Troll Zombie – level 43-56 x18.
Your group has defeated Warrior – Troll – level 64-67 (Bone) x2.
Your group has defeated Kir’mogan [The Brutal Blade] – Troll – level 81 (Bone).

“Oh, thank goodness,” Ali said.

“You can say that again,” Malika said. “How’re you doing, Mr. Bear?”

“Fine. Good fight,” Mato said, massaging his neck on the right. “He hits reasonably hard – for a Troll.”

Calen just snorted.

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