Readying themselves for the fight ahead, Eilyria buffed the group with some speed and attack blessings. Luna ushered Sol forward as Luna's Aquis coated her arrows in frost and attacked the Grove Guardian.
Unable to dodge the arrows due to its massive frame, the Grove Guardian unfurled and deep echoing grumbles sounded out as it began to defend the staircase.
With the initial slow speed and the additional frost, Sol was able to get into position to land some of his damaging abilities alongside Eilyria attacking as well and buffing Sol's attacks that let some of his damage get through the Guardian's monstrous defense.
With the attention of the Guardian firmly on Sol, Luna and Diana unleashed a flurry of arrows while making sure their familiars buffed up their elemental damage as much as possible. When the Guardian shows signs of changing its attention, Luna made sure to call out to limit their output as to not reset the Guardian.
Frustrated as it was getting kites so fiercely, the Guardian reared back both of its arms and slammed them together towards Sol.
"Watch out! You gotta dodge the shockwave!" Annoyed that one of the most annoying of the Guardian's abilities was cast sooner than she anticipated, Luna cried out to warn her brother.
Despite the warning, Sol couldn't dodge the rapid approach of the shockwave and resulting debris that was flung towards him.
Blocking as best as he could with his new shield, the shockwave slammed into his chest and knocked him off his feet.
Losing his balance, the bits of rock and thorny vines bombarded Sol. Despite heavy amounts of healing and shielding arriving from Minerva and Eilria, Sol was unable to hold out any longer and died. With his death, the Guardian began to attack Luna and Diana.
Even with kiting the boss, the group eventually had to run outside of the Guardian's protection radius and the monstrous rock quickly regained all of its lost health as it returned to the base of the staircase.
After being resurrected by Minerva, Sol stretched his whole body as the feeling of being crushed by tons of rock and thorny vines wasn't the most pleasant experience despite his body feeling rejuvenated after being brought back to life.
"Well that was quite good at the start, Diana quickly got a handle on her DPS output and Sol nice work on keeping the Guardian off us as long as you did. On that note, it seems like it will use that shockwave combo after it takes a certain amount of damage and the speed of the ability makes it very difficult to dodge or defend against." Going over the fight briefly, Luna paused slightly to let anyone input their observations.
Taking the queue Minerva spoke up. "I think the Grove Guardian roars and stands in place just before the combo happens. There wasn't a whole lot of healing needed up until that point besides the thorns damage on everyone and saw him roar and stop chasing Sol for a moment. I think that would be the best time for Sol and anyone in that direction to dodge as best as they can."
Nodding and realizing how the two sisters were able to be a dominating force in her past life, Luna cheered as this would make the fight much easier with the knowledge in hand since she couldn't just tell them ahead of time about every skill. Thankfully the shockwave combo was the only dangerous part of the fight. Well aside from the high defense and large reach of course.
After regrouping and applying the buffs once again, Sol charged forward as everyone else got into the rhythm. When the Grove Guardian roared once more, Sol was able to barely dodge away from the shockwave stun and was in a much better position to block the damage from the debris.
Unfortunately, Minerva was concentrating on keeping everyone topped off that she didn't realize that she was in the line of fire from the shockwave and died immediately.
Without support from Minerva, Eilyria was unable to out heal the boss damage to the group and Sol fell shortly afterward.
When they all regrouped once more, Minerva hid behind her sister constantly apologizing for ruining their chances of defeating the Guardian. It took a lot of encouragement from Sol and a glare from Diana to get Minerva back on track to get back to pulling the Guardian once more.
After a couple more attempts where thankfully they were able to prevent any more deaths, they managed to finally fell the Grove Guardian. So excited by their victory, Sol climbed onto the large body of the guardian and shouted out happily. Unfortunately, the guardian quickly began to crumble and Sol stumbled down and crashed onto the ground unceremoniously to the roaring laughter of everyone else.
As the boss finished crumbling, the vines blocking the entrance to the staircase opened up and two shining objects were left. With Sol being the closest, he picked up the two items, curious as to what they might be.
Rose's Thorns (Rare Bow) Lv. 13
Special Effect: Thorns - Attacks have a chance to proc Thorns and deal extra poison damage over 3 seconds. (Stacks up to 3 times)
Guardian's Stone Chestplate (Common Chest) Lv. 13
While both items were average considering how difficult the mini-boss was, they were welcome none the less. The chest plate was given over to Sol while surprisingly the bow was given to Diana with Luna pointing out that evening out the damage would make Sol's job easier since she had the extra damage coming from Aquis.
Happy either way that the group got stronger and was getting past these hurdles together, Sol cheered as they headed towards the staircase. As Sol got a closer look at the staircase, he fascinated by the delicate design of each stair as well as how sturdy the staircase was in its entirety.
Eilyria sat on Sol's shoulder, happily humming as she took in the beauty of the scenery and the slightly piney smell of the air.
Unfortunately, they were soon interrupted by a piercing screech as a group of vines separated from the tree trunk the staircase was wrapping around and bared their fangs at the group.
Vine Boa (Rare) Lv. 12
Health: 500
Special Effect: Constrict - Vine Boa can constrict its foes with their bodies, dealing light damage, and restricting their movement.
Individually, the boas were even less dangerous than the sprites on the first floor, but the already limited space of the staircase combined with the number of Boa made avoiding their constricting ability that much more annoying to prevent.
Faced with two boas in the front of them and another flanking behind, Sol quickly attacked the two in the front while Luna and Diana focused their attention on the one behind. Finding the situation extremely annoying as the boas kept wrapping around his limbs making not only defending against them difficult but even retaliating trying at times.
Thankfully Sol was successful at staying alive and keeping the boas occupied while the girls kited around the single boa, killing it swiftly and then proceeding to kill the ones on Sol.
Much more wary of their surroundings as they climbed up, they faced more boas and despite how careful they were, Diana had been killed as two boas snuck up on her while Sol was constricted and unable to save her before she died.
After a grueling climb with the snake-infested staircase, they finally collapsed as they reached the top of the staircase and entered into a decently sized room nestled within the top of the tree.
Shaped in a rough oval, directly opposite of the side they entered was a sleeping creature that looked a lot like a sprite but incredibly more detailed. Unable to see what the creature looked like, a soft green glow exuded from its resting place with a heartbeat-like rhythm.
Lydrra (Rare Forest Dryad) Lv. 15
Health: 1,500
While the group was resting after having fought through all the boas, Luna looked over the room and carefully planned out how they would approach the boss fight. Lydrra was a notoriously difficult boss which led to a lot of mixed feelings from the player base.
Many already had some trouble adjusting from the new control scheme of Reign and then adding on the generally lower levels that groups would initially enter the dungeon left many dazed by just how difficult the game was.
Not only was the mini-boss considered the hope crusher by many, but Lydrra was considered one of the most hated boss fights and had people resort to running to their deaths for days until they gave up and entered again when they were higher levels and geared better. However; at that point, the drops of the boss were not entirely worthwhile.
While reminiscing over her own first time fighting Lydrra, she suddenly saw something that made her blood run cold. 'What is that doing here?! This shouldn't happen until many later patches!'
Hidden in a small overhand as to be almost invisible, a small dark crevice held a smoky dark crystal shining its almost imperceptible light upon Lydrra.
Fragment of Corruption (Unknown) Lv. ???
Of course, such a thing would be missed by every player at this point. Many had found that they could find the stats and names of the various elemental creatures and items they came across. While this was true, players couldn't just sweep their vision across the world and find out the information of everything.
For example, there were creatures that were much higher level and would conceal their stats or special abilities such as bosses in dungeons or rares out in the wild. However, it was only till much later that there were hidden items or creatures that could be identified if found and for even more extremely rare cases had to be appraised by certain NPCs that would more often than not be an insane item and become the envy of millions of others.
This Fragment of Corruption was one such hidden part of the game that players had discovered in the next few months that led to huge development and set off the main plotline of Reign of the Aspects.
These fragments could corrupt rares or bosses and turn them into much stronger versions of their original forms. Some would require players to fight the corruption before it took hold of the creature, cleanse the corruption, or slay the creature and either destroy or purify the fragment.
Of course with the increased difficulty that the corruption had on the bosses and rares, the rewards were likewise boosted. Despite this, the chances of finding a fragment of corruption were fairly low until the official release of the expansion which ramped up the appearance of corruption appearing even in common creatures.
While Luna had never even heard of such a thing happening in the first few months of the game being released, once she thought about it some more, it wasn't impossible to imagine that stronger bosses and rares were missed early on as players would either be unable to defeat the encounter or miss identifying the corruption at all.
This opportunity would be something she would celebrate later, but right now it changed her plans significantly to the point where she highly considered leaving altogether. Of course, she wouldn't miss out on a chance at defeating the boss.
From the looks of the situation, Lydrra was currently trying to fight off the influence of the fragment. This type of fight would result in fewer rewards but make it much more manageable to defeat the avatar of the corruption rather than a corrupted Lydrra.
Looking over at her brother and the two goddess sisters, Luna felt that winning was entirely possible and steeled herself for the fight ahead.