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Meliadol trailed the group like a ghost, staying close enough to hear their subtle footfalls on the soft forest floor, but far enough away as to not draw attention. A delicate balancing act. Somewhere farther ahead, he knew, Darlia lurked, the experienced Blade Dancer keeping pace in her own way.
Compared to the rage inducing experience that was the last quest, this one was cakewalk so far. Meliadol allowed himself to smile as he crept to a nearby trunk, keeping it between himself and the elves. Peeking out, he waited a tense second before stepping to the next hiding spot.
PC: "How's it going on your end?" Darlia's voice reverberated in his head.
PC: "I'm right behind them. You?"
PC: "No complaints here."
Voice party chat fell silent and Meliadol, hunched down behind a fallen oak, peeked out to observe the passing elves. They were alert, like easily spooked deer, and he immediately hid again when their watchful gazes turned his way. After several seconds passed and the sound of walking began to fade, he poked his head out cautiously, quickly dashing closer into their blind spot when the coast was clear.
It was kinda fun being all sneaky like this. Meliadol pulled up his map as he waited. They were only a square closer to the edge, heading east. At their current speed, he'd probably have to follow closely for about five more minutes, he estimated.
With his sneaking ability granted to him by his Thief class, this was almost too easy. His mind had room to wander. Reflexively his gaze flicked up, to his party screen.
Darlia, level 12 Blade Dancer.
Her health bar was full, not that he was really worried about her. Even level synced, Meliadol had confidence that the feisty woman could handle anything she encountered in this scenario. But it stuck with him as a reminder of that day on Styxx, where she had shown him exactly how large the gulf between an experienced player and a newb could be. Seeing her in his party like this lit a fire deep inside him. A desire that fed on itself.
One day, he hoped, he'd be known not for the company he kept, but for the deeds he had done.
PC: "Hey," Darlia's voice jolted him from his thoughts, " I need you to–"
She fell silent as a roar shook the trees. It echoed, reverberating in his chest, coming from seemingly every direction at once. All the birds in the vicinity went wild, protesting, chattering, flitting this way and that, and it just added to the confusion.
The elves reacted immediately, drawing their bows and hunkering down. Their heads whipped back and forth, frantically searching for the source of the roar. Meliadol had to hide from their questing eyes. He pressed his back to a tree and tried to calm his breathing. What was going on?
PC: "Darlia, what the fuck was that?!" Meliadol froze as another roar, closer this time, resounded from the depths of the forest.
PC: "Shit," Darlia muttered, "The scenario boss spawned."
PC: "Scenario boss?"
PC: "It's random, but sometimes dungeons and scenarios have a rare boss that will spawn in them. Usually much harder than whatever else is in the area."
PC: "Oh."
A crashing sound behind Meliadol drew his attention. Like a ship emerging from a fog, a large black shape began to coalesce from amongst the sea of trees. Step by step, pushing its way through the prison of wood, it drew closer with a dreadful aura of inevitability.
The elves also saw it, and Meliadol heard their collective gasps. He edged closer, daring to peek over a log at the group through a mask of hanging branches and leaves. They looked ready to run, clutching their bows with a white-knuckled intensity. He could see the fear etched on their sharp elven faces.
A thought occurred to Meliadol, something which made his blood run cold.
PC: "Hey, will the elves run from this boss?"
PC: "They might."
Fuck.
As if they read his mind, like rabbits, the elves bolted from the approaching beast, actually jumping over the very log where Meliadol had pressed himself against. He held his breath as they passed over him, only daring to follow when the last had jumped over his hiding spot.
He abandoned all subtly as he struggled to keep up with the agile elves, weaving around trees, the branches whipping his face, and jumping over forest debris. Not that it mattered. The elves were too afraid to look back. They were flitting shadows, always just ahead of Meliadol, always just on the cusp of breaking free from his sight.
With another thunderous roar, the beast began to pursue, crashing through the trees, snapping thick trunks like toothpicks. The wood shattered, raining down, and, unlike the elves, Meliadol made the mistake of looking back…
It looked like a gigantic midnight bear with a head that was several sizes too large and a sinister smile that went just a little too unnaturally far, cutting down the side of the face and halfway down the muscular neck, almost splitting the body in two. The boss was all jagged teeth and mouth, with wicked boar-like tusks jutting out right above the shoulders, digging into, and through, the upper and lower lips, turning the massive maw into a bloody portal of teeth and drooling saliva.
The misshapen shoulders flexed as it ran, two cannon balls of alternating rippling muscle, and the beast bulldozed its way through the forest, bearing down on Meliadol and the elves with surprising speed that belied its massive body.
Meliadol reflexively opened his mouth to scream, but then their eyes met and it died in his throat, petering out to a squeak as he almost stumbled. Never before had Meliadol felt such a malevolent, overbearing presence. This was no NPC, his instincts shouted, and this was no game. This was something against the natural order. An abomination in every sense of the word.
He flew along the forest path, fear lending speed that he didn't have before. Somehow he kept the elven warriors in sight, with the warning of being out of range only occasionally appearing in the corner of his vision.
He couldn't outrun the beast. Meliadol could feel the certainty in the very marrow of his bones, in the way his hair along his neck bristled at the idea. Every lumbering step of the monster's, easily worth four or five of his own, brought it ever closer.
But what else could he do? If he veered off, not only would he fail the quest, but he would almost certainly be caught. He could only hope that he completed the quest before it came to that and just accept his death afterwards.
The beast gave a mighty leap, bursting through a crest of pines and purely on instinct Meliadol dove as the monster came crashing down where he had been, the sheer force of the landing throwing him further, showering him with rocks and dirt.
He rolled with it, accepting the momentum, and managed to stumble his way back into a run, still on the trail of the elves. The beast roared in frustration, galloping forward, every massive leap causing the ground to ripple and break. Meliadol hopefully glanced back, but was dismayed by what he saw.
The beast barely hiccuped when it passed over the spot where he had set the Electric Needle Trap. Did it have immunity to paralysis?
Fuck! He continued to run with everything he had, but it felt as if the beast was bearing down, right behind him, smothering, close enough that any second would result in being trampled. He imagined he could feel its fetid breath upon his back. Meliadol couldn't do it. There was no way. Yet he kept running, hoping for a miracle.
PC: "Go. I got this."
Like a meteor, Darlia came flying in, two swords flashing twice. Again the boss roared, two thin bloody furrows cut into it's flank. It spun, throwing up a cloud of dust as it change direction, attacking this new intruder that would dare to fight it.
The Blade Dancer weaved in and out of the attacks, backing away the entire time. With the aggro firmly on her, the boss followed her deeper into the heart of the forest. Silently Meliadol thanked her, continuing his chase, the cloak of one elf disappearing into the brush ahead of him.
But the beast was no longer chasing them, and the elves realized it quickly. Meliadol slid into a bush when he realized the elves had stopped running, almost giving away his own existence. It was nothing but dumb luck, really.
It was a standoff. The elves waiting, listening, for the beast they thought was on their heels, and Meliadol waiting for them to continue their retreat. He wanted to scream at them to hurry up, fidgeting as he watched Darlia's HP bar fluctuate.
He just had to trust her to hang on until he finished the quest.
After what seemed to be an eternity, the elves melded back into the forest with Meliadol on their heels.
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