I glance over to Sarah and Slax and notice that the girls summon is mowing through the weaker scritchers and aiming for the more evolved ones in the back. Watching for a moment I notice the fish faced creature smiling and showing small signs of intelligence, something that worries me about a summon but before I can rush to check on them I hear the rending of metal before Iron goes flying past me and slides through the gray soil before stopping with a grunt.
"Little help here sister of Iron! This damn thing isn't evolved it's a full blown boss monster. From what little I can see its a ruler type so the more minions it has the stronger it is. Also has a few elemental attacks from earth and phantom. Now lets go!" Shouts the creature possessing Iron as she rushes back toward the leader of the scritchers.
Watching Iron fight the creature I start to take stock of it and look for any types of weak points. It stands at least eight feet tall with a still hunched back but its frame has solid chords of lithe muscle running over it. Its arms are long enough to hang past its knee's easily as its legs are extremly long and it always seems to move in a crouched or slouched position. Unlike most of the other scritchers this one wears several pieces of roughly made armor, most of the armor is made of bleached white bone with small glints of metal showing in random area's. The boss creature wields long bone claws strapped to his wrists and protruding past its fingertips to create dangerous gauntlets. As Iron swings her weapon towards the creature I watch as a piece of metal on its long pointed ears glows brown before the earth under its feet rises up and solidifies into a defensive wall blocking her attack. After Iron jumps backwards from the wall it sinks back into the ground before the scritcher leader lashes out and kills another of the basic members of its kind, the body falling over quickly before a weak, barely seeable wraith flies towards the leader and is pulled screaming into the claws on his wrists.
Before he can lunge forward top attack Iron again I dart under his guard and shove my lance forward, smiling savagely as the tip pierces a s small gap in its armor under its armpit. As the lance head moves through the bosses flesh I cast my strongest debilitating poison spell and laugh as I can already see the area around the small wound begin to turn pale grey and look sick. I try my hardest to dash away from the boss but before I can move I feel a burning sensation on my chest before I fly backwards and am lodged in a small crater. As I try to fight through my blurring vision I can feel something holding my body in place. As I finally clear my vision I flinch as the face of a ghostly scritcher is hovering inches from my face, its spindly hands on each of my shoulders as a ghastly glow surrounds my body. As I struggle to break through whatever spell is holding me the ghost scritcher smiles maliciously as it lowers its jaws towards my throat slowly as it watches the fear and anger on my face.
*Skreeeeeeeee*
All of a sudden the scritcher is pulled away violently and a crunching sound is heard before the insectoid visage of Banshee hovers overtop of my body, her leg held out to me to grab as the remains of an arm hang from her mouth before she chitters and slurps it intro her maw.
"Fuck girl, never thought I'd be happy to see a bug. Since it looks like you can take on the ghosts can you help us beat the boss down, he's poisoned right now so it's only a matter of time before he's capturable." I say as the giant spider bobs its body up and down in a semi nod as we charge towards the steadily slowing scritcher leader. As the boss glances towards us it frowns before flinging several other spectral scritchers from his claws towards us. Before I can respond Banshee darts in front of me and begins screeching happily as she spits webs towards the new enemies, trapping several before she begins pouncing towards the still free ones, her front legs skewering several of them as she savagely battles the ghostlike creatures.
As Banshee fights off the ghostlike scritchers I charge towards the boss and begin trying to reinforce Iron, her armor having several holes in it and her shield arm hanging limply at her side while the creature possessing her takes haggard breathes while it weaves and dodges the blows that could destroy its hosts body. Barely arriving in time to block a slash from the creature, Iron nods in thanks as she swings with her axe, the sound of clashing weaponry ringing out as I duck ion front of her and begin peppering the creature with quick but inaccurate blows laced with venom in the hopes that any hits will make it fall. Hearing a crash behind me I dodge backwards and glance towards the sound before frowning sadly as Banshee's body falls to the ground lifeless as she rolls her body overtop the few remaining ghost scritchers, crushing and trapping the creatures under her as she chitters happily and finally goes still.
"Get the cages ready Tyr, looks like your blows did well because its slower than that idiot Bardock when he's drunk. Iron will need healing after this and I can't be called for a long while so be careful." The being inside Iron says as her body falls backwards, unconscious. Grabbing her body and tugging her away from the boss I glance towards it and notice its struggling to move, its breath is coming out loud and harsh as it stumbles towards us muttering under its breath.
"No.....Weak prey must fall.....must kill for him.....so....tired....." Hisses out the boss scritcher as it finally trips over a small mound of corpses and falls to the ground, shallow breathing can be heard from its body as I cautiously use the magic chains to restrain it and then look around the battlefield. Bodies litter the area but I notice Sarah and Slax are both still alive but bloody, the summon of Sarah along with what looks like a couple of undead holding down several of the evolved scritchers with various wounds. In another area several regular scritchers are webbed and unable to move, intense fear evident on their ugly faces as several more of the ghost scritchers continue to struggle with no effect from the webs of banshee.
"Damnit we did it but we lost one, everyone regroup and begin healing, get the prisoners in the cages and finally lets head back. That thing said it was following someone and if it can control a monster this strong we need to run and train." I say as everyone nods with exhaustion and begins using their healing spells or abilities on the various wounds while Slax goes to banshee and stores her corpse inside of his inventory with a sad look on his face. I sit down and take a deep breath that smells of death as I can't help but smile at slaughter we just committed and wondering what else is in our future.