Unforged

Chapter 9: A Freaking Miniboss

Tristan

Room by room, the oozes were getting more difficult, as his kill notifications kept pointing out. Even the adjectives attached to them started to change.

You have slain [Vile Ambusher Ooze, level 2]

Minimum experience gained due to no combat Class.

You have slain [Reeking Black Ooze, level 3]

Minimum experience gained due to no combat Class.

Then they entered a room that smelled exactly like rotten eggs. He crouched down low, letting Chessa come forward to scout the room ahead of them, wondering if the stench was somehow related to the oozes’ strength.

If so, we might actually be in trouble here.

The room was filled with wooden barrels in racks of varying sizes. It looked like it had once been modeled after a wine cellar, but the racks no longer sat along the walls. What few weren’t broken in half were strewn haphazardly across the room. The obstacles further limited the dimmed light cast by the guttering torches that were evenly spaced around the room.

None of the other rooms were this bad. It put him on edge.

There was a persistent dripping sound, as at least one of the nearby containers was clearly leaking. A muddy liquid slowly seeped into a dark and slowly-expanding puddle.

“I don’t like it,” Tristan’s voice was barely audible above the steady drips.

“You shouldn’t like it. This room is freaking creepy,” Opie replied.

Chessa nocked an arrow and slightly drew her bowstring. “I don’t see anything, but it feels like a great place to get ambushed.”

Opie sighed. “Or a miniboss room. Did your guide say anything about this kind of room?”

Tristan lifted his shield uncertainly, not loving how its reflected light only added to the shadows of the tomblike room. “No, at least not in the ooze variant.”

“Just our luck,” Opie groaned. “Well, I’m pretty full on mana, so... Let’s just go ahead, and try not to die too fast.”

Tristan began to slide into the room one foot at a time. Occasionally he even stabbed into the shadows, despite Chessa not seeing anything in them. He knew something lurked in there somewhere, he could just feel the wrongness of the place.

As he neared the room’s midway point, he saw that there were multiple dripping barrels. They all seemed to feed into the same central puddle.

“Is it just me, or is that puddle closer than it was a moment ago?” he asked aloud, pointing with his sword as he looked back at his friends.

“What, you think it likes you?” Opie laughed. “Come on, man, even you can do better than a pud--OH GODS! TRISTAN, WATCH OUT!”

Something thumped against Tristan’s shield and grabbed at his sword arm. The familiar sting of an ooze’s touch began burning his wrist and fingers.

A cloud of pure green energy surrounded Tristan, and he could feel Opie’s spell gradually mending his wounds. He quickly flung the ooze backward with a twist and strong shove of his shield.

“Fall back!” Chessa was shouting as she loosed arrow after arrow. “If you can get back to the door, we can try and create a choke point!”

Tristan didn’t need to be told twice. He held his shield before him, struggling to block the new ooze’s attacks along the way, but the blasted thing was fast. Tristan used his high Strength to pull some of the racks into the way, but the ooze just flowed through the gaps without the slightest hint of slowing. It kept grasping with tentacles and was always slurping toward him.

Ten steps from the door, it stretched itself thin to surround Tristan, sword, shield and all. A wall of sulfuric foulness quickly rose between him and the door, separating him from his allies and making his eyes water. But seconds before the side walls could completely envelop him, a purple-gloved hand plunged through the ooze and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him through.

For a moment, Tristan couldn't breathe. His eyes and nose burned as he surged through the all-consuming blob. Seconds stretched longer, as he couldn’t tell whether the pull would win out against the suction.

Then he emerged, gasping, right beside the nearly closed door, Chessa’s grip barely pulling him through it. His health had plummeted. It kept dipping and surging within the critical range despite Opie’s constant healing efforts, which actually seemed to get more powerful the lower his health got.

Tristan barely backpedaled through and blocked the shrinking crack between door and frame.

The determined ooze slurped against his shield anyway, eager to glide around him.

But somehow, finally, Tristan pushed the door fully closed.

Even then Tristan couldn’t rest. Impacts threatened to crack through the wooden door. He wondered how long it could hold. Or if the hinges will break first…

“That’s a freaking miniboss!” Opie was shouting. “It was so fast it actually dodged some of Chessa’s arrows!”

Tristan braced the door against the ooze’s pounding. Then he heard something that sounded mysteriously like wood bubbling or boiling.

Looking down, he saw the ooze dissolving the bottom of the door and squirming beneath it.

“It’s squeezing under!” he shouted, shield-bashing every bit of ooze that squished through.

“Let some of it through,” Chessa replied, sidestepping to a better angle as she let another arrow fly. “Use the choke point.”

When Opie didn't object, Tristan resigned himself. This is going to hurt.

And he was right.

Tristan successfully tanked the miniboss, which is to say he ended up inside it. Repeatedly. Being devoured over and over. But at least then every swing was guaranteed to deal damage, and the ooze stopped chasing his squishier friends.

When the final arrow landed and they got the kill notification, Tristan’s whole body felt raw.

You have slain [Quick Ooze {Elite Guardian}, level 4]

Minimum experience gained due to no combat Class.

Still, he smiled. They'd killed a miniboss despite being totally ambushed. And a hard variant at that.

“Mana break! Or just a break in general,” Opie demanded, heaving a huge sigh of relief.

And though he didn't even blink when Chessa mentioned loot, he did crack a joke when all she revealed was a pouch full of silver coins. At least they’d agreed at the start to split all coins evenly at the end.

He’d also noticed a notification offering him the ability to take “Bruiser” as a Secondary Class, but even if he went Offensive with his first Secondary, he would want something more focused than a hybrid melee-tank. He dismissed the notification for now. He could worry about Secondaries in tier 2.

The following rooms and halls were comparatively easygoing. While the oozes were higher levels, with more staying power and more damage potential, it wasn't as threatening as the Quick miniboss. Tristan also continued improving with his newly-repaired sword, so the increased health of the monsters was balanced by Tristan’s damage output. He was getting better at balancing the dealing and preventing of damage with each battle. Opie wasn’t even pressed to heal as often, so his banter returned stronger than ever.

Another perk of getting past the midway point the Quick Ooze miniboss represented was that the other oozes’ coloration began changing. Sometimes they got darker with levels; sometimes they swapped to new colors altogether. But every color (other than gray) was easier to see against the floor and walls.

Yet despite all these positive changes, when they stopped for their third break in an hour, Tristan noticed Opie looking entirely frustrated. Tristan went and sat beside him.

“Hey man,” he began, “how are you doing?”

Opie grunted as he produced a light blue mana potion from his bag. “I’ve gotten nearly a full level,” he began, “but I’ve still only found one freaking mana potion. Do you realize I’ve gotten five healing potions? What is the freaking deal?”

Tristan shrugged. “I haven’t found a single mana potion. And, strangely enough, after that miniboss, all my healing potions are gone now, too. Weird.”

Opie faked a laugh at Tristan’s attempt to joke as he stowed the blue potion in his bag. In its place, he produced and tossed a red one to Tristan. “Just don't burn this one needlessly.”

Tristan uncorked it. “So you said to drink it now?” But when Opie only chuckled lightly, Tristan restoppered the potion and put it in his pouch. “Thanks,” he said. Both of their eyes drifted up to the bigger door before them.

“Looks like all we've got left is the boss room.” Opie raised his voice. “Damn, it would just be AWFUL if I got mana potions to drop. I’d absolutely hate that. It would be the WORST POSSIBLE THING.”

“You know the reverse jinx doesn’t work, right?” Chessa said, rolling her eyes yet again.

“It won’t now that you’ve called attention to it!” Opie was silent for a few moments later before muttering, “It’s not like there’s anything left to kill for loot before the boss anyway...”

Tristan rose, laughing a bit, as he swung his repaired sword. “You know you’re an amazing healer. Even without any mana potions. I can’t believe you’re enabling me to tank this place, and against oozes no less.”

Opie chuckled. “Yeah, you are not an easy guy to keep alive. Sometimes it feels like you’re hitting yourself with that sword, your hit points get so low. It’s way better than with the dagger, but, I mean, these oozes..."

“They’re the actual worst.” Chessa inserted. “We got really, really unlucky with our variant dungeon.”

“It does seem really punishing to melee,” Tristan began. “The smell alone--”

“Oh, they still smell awful at range,” Chessa assured him. “I bet they have passives to increase the range of their stink.”

Opie rolled his head backward, stretching his neck. “It’ll take a week to clean this robe.”

Chessa came over and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “That’ll be an awful time for your mom, huh?”

Tristan barked out a laugh.

“I do my own laundry!” Opie protested. “You’ve seen me do my own laundry!”

Tristan pretended not to notice the couple quipping back and forth as he walked toward the far end of the room where the biggest door yet waited. His whole body still stung like he’d stood right beside the forge for hours. He felt a strange excitement slowly building within him.

This is it. Behind these doors, my first real boss monster. It was a little scary, but so were a lot of the situations he’d faced since his Awakening. I can do this. I’m a survivor.

He turned toward the door and actually inspected it this time.

There were symbols and inscriptions covering every panel, though Tristan couldn’t read any of the words. Some of the images depicted large armored goblins. Others showed giant balls of rats, which seemed to spawn even more rats. Tristan recognized those as the bosses the guides mentioned most, when the dungeon wasn’t a variant.

Finally, there was a gigantic blob that seemed to be spouting tendrils outward, like an oozing claw reaching through the gate, surrounded by pools of liquid. The artist even gave it stink lines! That, at least, was amusing.

With another look back, he decided to wait before he shared his discovery with the couple. What are a few more minutes in the grand scheme of things?

Eventually, he broke the comfortable silence. “We should plan for the boss.”

The couple rose together, with Chessa giving a solemn sigh. “Yeah, that would be the next step. But it’s the small moments like this that make it all worthwhile.”

Tristan admittedly hadn’t thought about it before, but he agreed.

Opie just waved her off. He still looked a little tired with bags under his eyes. “Nah, it’s bosses and sweet, sweet loot that make it all worthwhile! Given our variant, we’re probably gonna get the Splitting Ooze. And a harder boss means the loot will be better too, right? Especially with Smart Loot!”

Chessa had her hunting face back on. “Sure. Smart Loot is part of the quest reward, which I’ll be delighted to finally get. As for the boss itself, both other times I was in, the boss fit the theme.”

“Like that giant ball of rats that kept pooping out even more rats!” Opie said, a little too excitedly.

“Couldn't the odds break for us again and give us the easiest boss instead?” Tristan asked.

Opie chuckled. “Man, how many hits to the head did you take? I mean, I guess it’s possible, but have you seen our luck in here?”

“Maybe it won’t be that bad?” Tristan offered.

Opie groaned. “Gods damn it, Tristan! You just jinxed us a-freaking-gain!?! After we got freaking oozes last time?!”

Chessa shook her head. “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. If it is the Splitting Ooze, remember it leaves a patch of poison on the ground the one time it splits.”

Tristan nodded. He remembered. His father had quizzed him on all the bosses’ biggest attacks. “Just once, right?”

Chessa was checking the fletching of her arrows. “That’s what the guide said.”

“Wait, which guide?” Opie asked.

“Dungeon Delver Dave,” Chessa replied.

“Oh. My dad said not to use that one.”

Tristan perked up. “Why not?”

“I don’t really know, but he said it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.”

“Well, we have the information we have,” Tristan said noncommittally. “The guide was dead on about the awful smell.”

Opie frowned. “Such useful information, that. I could have written that without even going into the dungeon.”

Chessa, meanwhile, cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders. “Well, I’m ready. You guys?”

Opie nodded, raising his staff in one hand while beginning a spell motion with the other. “Hold up. Let me cast my big buff first. It’s a whole ritual thing, so it costs a lot of mana and has a full day cooldown. I’ve been saving it for the boss.”

Tristan and Chessa both nodded, and within a minute a greenish mist surrounded and embraced each of them. It felt like it washed away Tristan’s lingering stings and aches, slowly restoring his health. It even reduced the smell a little, making it nearly bearable.

Opie looked a little drained, leaning on his staff. “Done,” he confirmed.

“Right then, here we go.” Tristan said, placing a hand on the door, which slowly began to grind upward toward the ceiling. Immediately, his eyes began to water and his insides roiled. The stench from the other side was still vile, and so overpowering he truly couldn’t imagine anything in the entire world smelling worse.

Coughing, he pulled his shirt over his mouth and nose. “Looks like we got the ooze.”

“Hey, Tristan,” Chessa said as the gate finally inched high enough for him to pass. “The Splitting Ooze is going to be a race against the growing poison pool; we'll need more damage output. Think you can stow the shield and try using two weapons instead?”

Tristan looked at the shield on his wrist with both a twinge of regret and a spark of understanding. “You’re the leader. If you think it’ll help, then I'm willing to try.”

Opie groaned. “You're going to take even more damage?”

Tristan looked at him with snarky disbelief. “Only if I get hit.” He set his shield on the ground. I can’t have it weighing me down mid-fight. I’ll just come back for it after the boss.

“So yes then.” Opie shot back. “Well, then let’s hurry. That [Rejuvenation Ritual] only lasts a few minutes.”

Taking battle stances, the trio hurried into the dungeon’s final room, completely aware that the awful smell was about to be the least of their problems.