When I told Nuoda about the new skill that we had developed, she seemed even more eager for the key to the dungeon than Diane had been. I had to wonder if players were really that crazy about modifying their appearance. They already modified how their Chosen looked when they were first making the character, was there really a need to go through all of this?
Diane even asked if I was interested in using one of the skill books myself, and then enchanting a Martial version onto our last enchantment skill book. However, I quickly refused. I had no need for a skill like this. If I wanted to change my appearance, I would just use my False Identity-X. It was not worth burning our last enchantment skill book just to create a Martial transformation skill.
Still, with both Nuoda and Diane insisting, I agreed that we could spend as long as we needed to farm this dungeon. Given that there were only twenty or so players in Fallcry, and most of them weren’t high enough level to tackle a dungeon in this area, it wasn’t like we’d really have any competition. Nuoda even stressed the fact that she would keep this skill confidential until we obtained the key.
Personally, I still felt as if they were blowing this way out of proportion. But, if this was the kind of thing that players liked, I wasn’t going to argue.
After collecting all of the mimic corpses to store in my inventory, we made our way to the third room, which definitely seemed to be the boss room. Within it were six giant statues, each four meters tall and with a different weapon. One had a bow, another a sword and shield, then there was one with daggers, a staff, a whip, and finally one unarmed.
“Don’t tell me that we’re going to have to face six bosses.” Bella complained, her eyes wide. However, I shook my head.
“Given the theme of the dungeon so far, only one of these is likely to come to life. The challenging players just have no idea which one it will be until it starts attacking.”
Diane seemed to agree with my remark, pre-emptively entering her shadow dragon mode. Similarly, I entered my draconic form, using Martial Intent as the focus, given how versatile the skill was. The three of us walked towards the center of the room, where a large circle was drawn. Meanwhile, the six statues were placed in a circle along the edge of the room, making it harder for us to watch them all.
Once we had stepped into the circle, the statue holding the staff had its eyes glow. Fleshy protrusions appeared at its joints, and it stepped forward, raising the staff. Balls of fire formed in the air around the statue, flinging towards us one after another.
I quickly erected a barrier, focusing on defense while the other two attacked. While these attacks were indeed powerful, they didn’t quite match up to the strength of the boss of the previous bosses that we had tackled earlier in the day. Although it took a good deal of my focus to maintain the barrier, it didn’t feel like it would be breaking from this bombardment.
As I was thinking about that, Diane began slashing at the joints of the statue, causing viscous green blood to leak out while Bella fired one arrow after another at its head. Meanwhile, the boss itself switched from fire to ice, sending large spears of ice at myself and Diane.
Seeing the change in tactics, I used Killing Stare to provoke it to focus on myself, the first spike only grazing Diane as she jumped up towards the statue’s head. With a powerful slice, she severed the head of the statue, causing it to crumble.
I didn’t let my guard down, preparing for the possibility of this being a boss fight with multiple stages. However, a door did open on the far side of the room, revealing a boss chest. This time, the chest was not locked, nor did it turn into a monster trying to eat Diane when she opened it.
Unfortunately, we did not get the key to this dungeon, so we left to the previous room to try again. The next time the boss reset, it was the unarmed statue, which charged forward to fight in melee. Each time we challenged, it seemed to randomly choose one statue, without any rhyme or reason. And each statue seemed to possess skills related to the weapon and attire it had equipped.
We spent the rest of the day there, challenging the dungeon boss a total of seven times before Diane needed to stop for the night. To avoid any questions, we didn’t tell anyone about the details of the dungeons after we returned.
The next day was a Thursday, so we had a somewhat later start, but Diane looked determined as soon as she logged in. We returned to the dungeon, fighting our way through the mimic hallway and collecting another five locked chests. However, the key still refused to drop after we fought the final boss.
We challenged the boss again, and still nothing. Yet, on our third challenge of the day, something did change.
The three of us had long gotten used to the process of this dungeon, both Diane and I already in our draconic forms as we all entered the circle. Bella had her bow drawn, ready to turn and attack any of the statues that started to move. At this point, we had already fought all of them at least once, and learned their patterns.
We were, however, not prepared for all six statues to come to life at once. We briefly panicked, allowing the bow-wielding statue to shoot a large stone arrow towards us. I barely reacted in time, parrying the arrow with an angled projection. Just as I did, the martial artist statue charged in, preparing to engage.
“Focus fire!” Diane shouted, entering stealth as I protected myself and Bella. “Wizard first, then whip! Take out their control abilities!”
Bella nodded her head, turning to focus her attention at the statue spewing spells at us. Meanwhile, I had to defend against the attacks of all six bosses at once. Although a single boss had no chance of breaking my barrier, all six of them were immediately starting to crack it.
To prevent this, I summoned my three clones, each of which deployed their own barriers. Although their barriers wouldn’t be as strong as my own, I needed any additional defense that I could get here. It was hard enough having to control the barriers to allow Bella’s attacks to penetrate, opening small gaps just as her arrows were about to pass through.
Thankfully, the two of them were able to quickly kill the wizard, which began to lessen the pressure I had to face. Of course, having a four meter statue slam a giant chunk of stone shaped as a sword against my shields wasn’t helping, and the pressure was constantly building in my head as I struggled to maintain the barriers.
With each statue that was defeated, this pressure was reduced, until I could actively focus on the battle once we were down to our final two. These were the unarmed statue and the warrior. The reason that they had to be saved for last was that both of them had high defenses. Diane’s daggers couldn’t penetrate deep enough to inflict a fatal wound, and they could either dodge or block Bella’s charged arrows.
In other words, these were the two that I needed to personally attack to deal with. I left my three clones focused on defense, while I myself resorted to the tried and true giant pestle. What better way was there to destroy a living statue than by grinding it to a bloodied pulp?
To prevent the unarmed statue from dodging, I summoned projected shackles that bound all four of its limbs. Just long enough for the pestle to slam down from above, caving in its skull. Meanwhile, the warrior swung its heavy sword, briefly shattering two of the three shields my clones had produced. Only the third one, the Ki Clone, managed to maintain its shield.
Turning to face this warrior, I let out my pent up aggression by reinforcing the pestle before slamming it down. The warrior instinctively moved to block with its shield, but that was precisely why I was the one to deal with it. My pestle crushed the shield, pinning the warrior beneath it and crushing it without a shred of mercy.
Just as I was thinking that the fight was over with the deaths of all six statues, I heard a skittering sound from above. The three of us looked up, horrified to see what looked like a chandelier of gore hanging from the ceiling, a mangled torso forming along the bottom. Thick, red tendrils spread out along the ceiling like veins, traveling down towards the floor.
“Fire!” Diane shouted urgently. “And yes! Both the element and action!”
I didn’t need to be told twice, using Fire Intent-X to send waves of fire along the walls, preventing the tendrils from their continued descent. Meanwhile, Bella began charging up the biggest attack she could manage.
This boss monster, which I identified as a Grand Mimic, screeched as its tendrils were burnt. Those tendrils began to dig into the walls, causing cracks that quickly seemed to heal over. “Drake, we need more fire!” Diane called out in a panic, seeming to realize what was coming.
“I’m giving it all I’ve got!” I responded, focusing on flooding the walls with the most intense flames I could manage, my Fire Clone joining me in the process. Soon, giant hands began to form along the walls themselves, reaching out towards us.
Diane was focused on firing as many shadow spears as she could possibly conjure, trying to make even a dent in the hanging monstrosity’s body. Meanwhile, my Ki and Water Clones were busy attacking the hands, smashing them as soon as they formed.
Finally, after nearly a full minute of charging, Bella released her bow string. Dozens of densely packed arrows fired upwards, focusing on a single point on the monster’s body. One sickening crunch after another echoed out, before the entire body itself seemed to dislodge from the ceiling.
In a panic, all three of us lunged out of the way as the creature’s corpse fell within the circle where we previously stood. “I did not enjoy that fight.” I said with a grunt, rubbing my forehead and waiting for the pressure to recede once again.
“Same.” Diane nodded, but walked over towards the corpse, looting it. While it might be nice to turn one of these mimic bosses into a blood puppet, we needed the loot far more.
I watched as Diane’s entire body seemed to tense up, understanding that she must have gotten something good. “Did it finally drop?” I asked, and she nodded her head.
“The key, a copy of both skills, and a trait.” She said, showing me the trait to appraise.
“Six star, Master of Disguise. Increases the effectiveness of all transformation and disguise skills.” I reported, and she nodded again.
“Maybe that would let Bella change her voice with Transform.” She mused, putting the items in her inventory. “Okay… now that I have a moment to think… that was probably a special boss that only appears for parties that have fought all six randomly chosen bosses individually. Since the drops were so good, the key was probably made to be a guaranteed drop the first time this boss was killed. As for the trait, maybe that’s the same? Don’t know. Either way, we are finally done here.” She said with a sigh, and we all moved to collect the boss chest one final time.
“What’s our total haul looking like?” Diane asked after we had looted the chest. She had been avoiding asking until now, wanting to wait until we were done to get the final numbers.
Opening my inventory, I confirmed the numbers. “Eighteen each of Disguise and Transform, thirteen assorted pieces of equipment, some random mimic loot, and about fifteen platinum’s worth of bodies.”
Diane gave a satisfied nod at that. “The bodies will definitely be worth more at auction. Once players learn that mimic weapons can be used to create growth items, their value should increase by a lot.”
After she said that, she handed me the key to the dungeon. A quick appraise revealed the dungeon name to be the Shrine of Greed. Considering that the final boss only appears when someone comes in and repeatedly challenges its normal bosses… yeah, that felt like a fitting name. “Thankfully, Nuoda won’t need to organize anyone to raid the boss room, since all we need are the chests in the second room.”
Diane readily agreed with that, the three of us turning to leave the dungeon for the last time.
