Chapter 54: Queen Of The Swamp

Chapter 54: Queen Of The Swamp

“Good teamwork,” Seena said, eyeing the three lizard bodies. “Anybody hurt?”

“No, but I think I’m going to need new boots,” Yanily said, pointing at what had to be a gallon of lizard blood coating him from the knees down.

“How did you even manage that?” Seena asked.

“Skill,” Vix told them. “Path continues straight ahead, or we could go into the woods. What do you want to do, boss?”

“I think I see more of those totems in the woods ahead of us,” Hiral said. “Bigger ones. More complicated.”

“What kind of bones do you think they are?” Seena asked.

“Probably a question you don’t really want to know the answer to,” Nivian said.

Seena looked at the tank, then nodded. “Probably. Okay. Keep going, but be careful. Expect a Mid-Boss at any point now.”

“Right,” Nivian said, leading the party further down the path until they stopped at the lip of some kind of natural bowl in the ground. No, a bowl wasn’t right; it was more seashell-shaped, with a snake bigger than any they’d seen before coiled at the far, narrow end.

“It’s like some kind of theatre,” Hiral said, staring at the snake.

(Mid-Boss) Queen of the Swamp – Unknown Rank

“Or maybe an audience hall,” Hiral amended. “Queen of the Swamp, huh? There’s your Mid-Boss.”

“I don’t like this. What does unknown rank even mean?” Seena said, crouching down and motioning for the others to do the same. “The smokehouse and the summoning ritual had tricks to them. Even the Troblin Duke had that Enrage ability. And this snake is just sleeping in the middle there? No, there has to be more to it.”

“Only one way to find out,” Yanily said.

“Do you see any of those weak spots you were talking about?” Hiral asked. “What did you say they looked like?”

“Spots where the spikes had been broken off,” Vix said. “Usually a bit red, and you’ll know when you hit one.”

“Red, huh? Okay, I think I see a few of those.”

“Can you hit it from here?” Seena asked. “Maybe even kill it?”

“Maybe, but at this range, the shots wouldn’t do much damage, even if I hit those weak points. Need to be much closer,” Hiral said. “We’re going to have to fight it on its home turf.”

“Fine. Watch out for whatever tricks it might have,” Seena said. “Snake, so squeezing or venomous bite, I guess? And it’s going to be tougher than the others.”

“Yes, yes. Enough talking. Can we go kill it?” Yanily asked.

“Wule, let’s do buffs,” Seena said before quickly casting Lashing Vines on the party, while Wule did Nature’s Blade. “Left, can you drop your banner when we get down there?”

“Right where the snake is?” Left asked. “Keep its fifty-foot range in mind.”

“Yeah, let’s fight it where it is, for now,” Seena said, then gave Nivian his customary tap on the shoulder. “Take it to the Queen.”

Nivian’s body blurred then stretched as he activated his movement ability, rushing ahead while the rest of the group climbed over the lip of the audience hall and started after him. Crossing hundreds of feet in seconds, he arrived even as the Queen of the Swamp lifted her massive head, then activated his Swarm Tactics. The original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.

Yanily and Vix vanished from where they ran and appeared right next to Nivian, immediately moving to the sides to flank the huge snake. As soon as the two damage dealers began to spread out, Hiral and Seena did the same thing, arcing out wide to attack from range, while Right and Left escorted Wule into the melee.

The snake blinked as she watched them, her head lifting, lifting, lifting into the air. Then, in a burst of motion, she uncoiled, and a swarm of smaller snakes flooded out from where they’d hidden inside the coils of her body.

Even though each snake was only six or seven feet long, there were dozens and dozens of them, and the wriggling wave swarmed at the three closest targets.

Hiral skidded to a stop, his RHCs coming up, and he began to pull the triggers as fast as he could, bolts of Impact racing out to pick off the snakes rushing at Yanily. His first shot caught one snake in the face, blasting its lower jaw off as it lunged at Yanily, but his second only hit the snake in its body. Scales and blood flew off, and the body curled around the hit, but Hiral was still too far away for it to be an instant kill. Even the jawless one was still moving, and both were already heading toward Yanily again as Hiral pulled the trigger again.

Need to be closer!

Still firing as fast as the weapons’ cooldowns allowed, Hiral dashed forward, though he spared a quick look to see how the others were doing.

Energy flooded out of her, huge Spearing Roots erupting from the ground in a semicircle in front of the Queen’s extended neck. Trailing lines of purple flame, the razor-sharp tips slammed into the serpentine body and jerked it back. Thin lines of blood dribbled down from the impact points.

But it wasn’t enough. The tips barely penetrated more than an inch, the Queen’s thick scales protecting her from the worst of the attack, and the damage looked like nothing more than a ruby necklace.

Another thrash of the Queen’s head, then one more, and finally, Yanily lost his hold. The spearman sailed up through the air to thump down on the ground with a pained grunt fifty feet away.

“Wule!” Seena shouted, the healer already moving in the spearman’s direction.

But, as Yanily forced himself to sit up, the snake’s head snapped in his direction again.

“She won’t give up until he’s dead!” Hiral shouted, realizing the extent of her fury.

“Or, until this!” Nivian shouted, wading into a group of the smaller snakes that had grown oddly still since the Queen had attacked. Back and forth his whip lashed, thorns tearing open serpentine bodies as the Lashing Vines on his back also went to work. Then, noting how the snakes weren’t even fighting back, Nivian expanded his shield to the size of a tower shield and slammed it down on the mass of thrashing snakes. “Seena!”

“Got it!” she said, channeling a Spearing Roots into Nivian’s shield at the same time the Queen rushed toward Yanily and Wule.

She hadn’t even gone ten feet when the roots burst out of Nivian’s shield and instantly killed dozens of smaller snakes. Her head snapped around with the familiar fury in her eyes.

“That got her attention,” Hiral shouted, firing off more blasts as the Queen focused on her new target.

Nivian got to his feet and readied himself. Left, meanwhile, dashed in beside the tank and put his right hand to his left bicep. Solar energy stretched from his arm to his fingers until a flapping banner appeared in his hands, the insignia of a glorious sun practically glowing with power. Thrusting the base of the banner into the ground, a dome of energy burst out to encompass a fifty-foot radius around the Banner of Courage, and both Nivian and Left’s skin seemed to shine.

Not in the least dissuaded by the new buff, the Queen of the Swamp lowered her head and bull-rushed ahead—straight for Nivian and his lowered shield.

“Right,” Hiral shouted, sheathing the RHC in his left hand, “she’s coming your way.”

“You sure about that?” Right asked as he ran into the shimmering dome, then set his feet as glowing energy began to gather in his right hand.

“Yes!” Hiral answered, reaching out his left hand and focusing his Rune of Attraction on Yanily’s spear in the Queen’s mouth.

While the serpent herself was far too large for Hiral to ever pull, the way the spear dug into the Queen’s mouth turned her to the side as she instinctively moved to ease the pain. One eye flashed angrily in Hiral’s direction, like she knew he was the cause of the tug, but then her body whooshed past Right.

Glowing like a purple sun, and buffed by the Banner of Courage, Right’s fist hit the side of the speeding Queen like a wrecking ball. Scales and then blood gushed out of the side of the Queen’s mass as she raced by, her own momentum dragging the growing wound the length of her body. Then, as her mouth widened in shock at the new and sudden pain, Hiral’s pull on the spear in her jaw yanked the weapon free.

End over end, it sailed to slap into the palm of his hand, and he immediately spun it around and drove it into the ground. Then he drew his second RHC and raced ahead.

This is it. Our chance.

Blood and gore gushed out of the Queen’s side. She writhed on the ground, tossing up chunks of dirt with every movement, and then let out a pained cry that echoed through the forest. Her head whipped around at the party closing in on her from all sides, the focus from earlier lost to the haze of pain.

Left arrived first, his Dagger of Sath trailing a purple river of flaming liquid. He ducked under a tail swipe aimed for his head, then spun and drove the dagger into the Queen’s long flank. All at once, the hanging stream in the air from the dagger raced ahead and then caught up to the blade, exploding out the other side of the Queen’s frame and nearly cutting her in half.

Another roar of pain as Right and Vix arrived, their fists hammering her from opposite sides. Nivian’s whip lashed across her face, one of the thorns catching an eye. Back snapped her head, and that was it—all fight left the Queen of the Swamp, and she flexed her muscles and sprang over the party. More blood showered the ground as the desperate maneuver taxed her already severely injured body, and she let out a pained whine when she hit.

For a second, it looked like she wasn’t going to move again, but one last burst of strength dragged her ragged body to the narrow end of the audience hall. Beaten and battered, the Queen weakly lifted her head into the air and let out one last cry, then toppled over sideways, her one good eye slowly blinking.

“Is that it? Did we win?” Nivian asked.

“Is that it?” Yanily asked, limping over and leaning on his spear. “Try getting tossed across the dungeon next time and see if you still feel the same way.”

“Yeah, well, at least we...” Nivian started, but a massive CROAAAAAAAK echoed through the sky, followed by the violent cracking of wood. It wasn’t the cracking of branches, though; it was the cracking of trees.

“And there’s your trick, Seena,” Hiral said as a gigantic lizard leapt out of the woods to land beside the Queen, the ground shaking with its arrival.

The monster had to be as big as the four-story inn they’d stayed in, and a name appeared above its head as Hiral stared at it.

(Mid-Boss) King of the Swamp – Unknown Rank

“Uh, I don’t even want to know what their children look like...” Yanily said, but he managed to heft his spear up into a ready position.

The Mid-Boss fight wasn’t over yet.