"Why does it have to be a spear? Why couldn't it be a dagger?" Isobel asked.
Evren shrugged his head and said, "Well, it is a short spear."
"Shut up Evren." Isobel retorted.
"If it follows the pattern that Aernide used, I think the next boss would drop a dagger." Evren commented.
Isobel got excited and said, "Then let's go!"
The group headed down to the next level, Walter and Ellis both limping to some injury that hasn't been healed yet. When they got down to the next level, they found a three and a half meter tall, one-eyed giant.
"Cyclops!" Walter said with a smile.
Evren looked at Walter, "Oh? You know this one?"
Walter shrugged, "Just the name of it."
Evren smiled and went running at the cyclops. In its hand was a large metal mace. It swung the mace horizontally and Evren dropped down to his knees to slide past the ogre. Unfortunately, before he had a chance to do anything cool, he hit something, causing him to tumble past the cyclops and lay flat on the ground. "Hahaha… Fuck!"
The cyclops turned towards Evren, which gave everyone a shot at it. An arrow, a 'rock lance', a 'flame burst', a 'lacerate' and a swing from Walter all assaulted the cyclops at once. It howled out in pain and rage and turned back, away from Evren. Isobel tried to take out one of the knees, but there was too much fat in the way to get deep enough. Without looking back, the cyclops swung its mace behind it at Isobel. Isobel ducked in to miss the mace and got too close to the cyclops' rear end. She ended up backing away holding her nose and gagging.
Walter slashed it across the belly, and Fletcher was aiming for its eye. It hit a few places around the eye, but the toughness of the cyclops prevented the arrows from staying stuck in. The 'rock lance' had penetrated a little bit before it was shattered. The 'flame burst' splashed fire over the chest of the cyclops, only setting the hair on it on fire. The greasy skin of the cyclops acted as a natural fire resistance. The 'lacerate' managed to leave a slight cut on the fat, but it wasn't significant by itself to do much damage.
The three casters in the back discussed their options and decided on the air spell 'lacerate' as their spell of choice. Karina called out, "Back off!" as a three-meter tall 'zephyr' appeared on top of the cyclops, causing slashes to continually form on it. A second and then a third were then added to the first, causing significant damage to the cyclops, covering it with wounds and blood.
The melee stepped back further to watch to see what the cyclops was going to do. It had its eye closed and was swinging its club about wildly. Finally, the cyclops charged forward getting itself out of the slicing twister. It opened its eye to look back at it and found the twister to be following it.
Its eye glowed and it followed something back to the casters and then went charging at them. "Shit! Can it see magic?" Ellis said as the three of them split up to run off in different directions.
They cyclops chose Harley to chase after as she ran straight back towards the passage to the previous level. Along the way she cried out, "Mr. Evren!!"
Evren cast 'vacuum' on the cyclops as it chased after Harley. The cyclops stopped and gasped for breath unsuccessfully. It turned around with its eye glowing and saw that Evren was the target for his problem, so it charged after him. Evren kept the vacuum spell up as he backed away from the cyclops to give it time to get to him. As it got closer, Evren took a deep breath and waited for it to get close.
The 'vacuum' field around the cyclops enveloped Evren as the struggling cyclops got in closer and swung its mace at Evren weakly. Evren merely stepped to the side to conserve his energy. The cyclops dropped to its knee weakly as Evren took a few steps backwards, eventually out of the 'vacuum' field. The cyclops had dropped the mace and was trying to crawl towards Evren while reaching out its hand.
Eventually the cyclops collapsed. Evren kept the 'vacuum' spell up on it until it started to dissolve. Harley approached and said, "That's what you get! Thank you, Mr. Evren."
Evren smiled and picked up yet another blue mana gem. "Alright, let's head upstairs and talk about this fight and take a break for today." As Fletcher went to pick up the arrows, the rest of the group headed back towards the passageway to the previous level. As soon as everyone got to the previous floor outside of the boss room, they began setting up the camp.
Once everyone had finished setting up the camp and was seated, Evren began the discussion with, "So, the obvious thing is they can see the flow of magic when their eyes glow. Aside from that, what has everyone else noticed?"
Isobel said, "They're fat. It's hard to get down to the tendons."
Evren nodded, "Good. What else?"
Ellis spoke up, "They seem resistant to fire, and the skin is too tough for 'rock lances.'"
"Ok, out of curiosity, and because I was on the ground, did you try 'icicle?'"
Ellis shook his head. Karina spoke up, "Air spells seemed to do ok against them, but the skin is thick and unless we can keep them in a 'zephyr' it'll only build up the damage slowly."
Evren nodded and Fletcher spoke up this time. Having only a single eye makes it tough to hit with arrows. It seemed to know when an arrow was flying at it and moved so the arrow hit a different spot on its face. It's got a tough skull too."
Walter spoke up and said, "I think Isobel got hit with a 'hex' spell."
Isobel shook her head, "I got hit with something, but it wasn't a spell."
Evren caught what she was saying and said, "Ah, bombed you, did it?" Isobel nodded with a red face.
Evren then said, "Ok, so tough skin, flame resistant, can see magic. We need to test 'icicle' and some lightning spells on it. They're a little smarter than the previous ones were, so I'll start using some dark magic on them. Since they can see magic so, I'm sure that illusions don't work. Anyone else? Walter?"
Walter nodded, "Yeah, so what was up with that knee slide you did?"
Evren laughed and said, "I hit something on the ground and didn't want to get hit by the mace, so I went for a tumble."
Everyone had a laugh and Evren closed by saying, "Ok everyone, get some rest. Eat some food and think about what we're doing starting tomorrow."
Everyone moved off to do their own thing, a few people grouping up to have a discussion among themselves. Evren looked to Walter, "How's the knee?"
Walter looked down to the knee in question and flexed it a few times. "It's still a little tender."
Evren nodded, "Get Harley to cast regeneration on it again. Tell Ellis to do the same." Walter nodded and stood up, heading over to the caster group who were discussing their spells.
Two weeks later, Evren was sitting on the floor of the cyclops boss chamber. He was bleeding from the head, with his sword and shield on the ground beside him. "Harley, can I get you to check on Walter?"
"Yes Mr. Evren!" Harley said as she ran over to Walter who was lying on the floor nearby. He had an obvious broken bone on his left arm, he had spit up blood and he was bleeding from the left ear.
Evren walked over to Karina who was also unconscious and examined her injuries. Ellis was over her curing the minor cuts he could see. Evren bent down and checked her eyes, then looked farther for broken bones. He figured she had broken a few ribs. She had been kicked in the chest by one of the cyclops that was in the boss room, before they got a chance to get control of it. Evren gave Ellis a few instructions on what to do to heal her and headed over to Isobel.
"How's the arm?" He asked.
"Dislocated." She said as she looked down at her right arm.
"Well, this'll hurt for a second. And then I'll take care of your wounds." Evren said.
He held her right arm with both hands and with quick jerk, set the joint. Isobel let out the breath she was holding and said, "Ow."
Evren chuckled and cast 'regeneration' on her shoulder before healing a few cuts.
"Evren, you need to get healed up too." She said.
Evren nodded, "Yeah, I know. I'll get to that in a minute." He looked to where the cyclops had finally fallen and said, "Looks like you got your dagger."
Isobel followed his gaze and said, "Are we going to do it again?"
Evren shrugged, "This was a rough fight. I'd like to do it a few more times. Everyone could use a dagger. I'd like to talk to everyone about it. Maybe come up with a better plan for next time." He stood and walked over to Walter.
His left arm had been set and a few of the cuts on him had been healed by Harley. Evren bent down and checked his eyes. "Hmm... concussion." He said.
Harley asked, "What's that Mr. Evren?"
Evren tapped his head and said, "Broken skull. I'll take care of it, if you could heal the cut on my head."
"Sure Mr. Evren." She replied and started to heal his cuts.
Evren gently felt Walter's head, looking for any indentions. Finding none, he cast 'set bone' and 'regeneration.' Checking the rest of him, he found a couple broken ribs to be set, so he cast the same spells there.
A few minutes later, Walter opened his eyes and sat up to look around. Evren helped him sit up and said to him, "Look at me. Ok, now follow my finger with your eyes." Evren moved a finger in front of his eyes back and forth, then up and down once. "Ok, much better. How are you feeling?"
With a small amount of confusion Walter said, "A little light headed. Did we get it?"
Evren nodded, "Yes, it's down. You'll probably have a headache for a bit."
Walter nodded and asked, "How's Isobel?"
"She's fine. Dislocated shoulder, and a few scrapes. She got a dagger though." Evren replied.
Walter chuckled and then coughed. "You had a couple broken ribs. I healed them, but it'll take time before it's healed fully. Think you can stand? I'd like to get everyone out of here."
Walter nodded and stood. He stumbled a little but was fine. He picked up his sword and sheathed it, heading for the exit. Evren watched him go and asked Harley to help him.
As he walked back over to Karina, he noticed Fletcher walking with Isobel towards the entrance. He looked to the two in the back and threw a thumb over his shoulder to tell them to head to the exit.
He took a knee by Karina and looked down at her. "That was quite a kick you took." Karina smiled and he continued, "If you want to be up front, I can get you a shield and some armor."
She sat up and shook her head. "No thanks."
As he helped her up, he looked to Ellis. "Any problems that you noticed?"
Ellis shook his head. Evren nodded and said, "Ok, head out. We'll take a break for a bit before we do anything more."
Evren was the last one through the door, making sure that everything had been picked up by the rest.