“Donut!” I cried, rushing up to the cat. I went to a knee and stroked her soft fur. I remembered brushing it earlier. It was hard to look at her like this. She’s so small, so vulnerable. She had Unconscious hovering over her body.
I reached over and opened up Mongo’s cage. The dinosaur jumped onto the chair and pushed his head questioningly against the cat, who did not wake up. He let out a worried screech.
Signet stood nearby, her hands clasped in front of her. Her small, bare breasts would’ve been a distraction at any other time, even with her ghastly face. Her tattoos seemed to congregate on her body, facing whatever direction I was in, all of them staring at me intently.
“We can’t leave Donut here,” I said, looking about the room. We were practically outside. Any wandering mob would find her. I worried about the janitor mob, whatever it might be.
“She will remain,” Signet said.
“No. Fuck you,” I said. I reached to pick her up. A health bar appeared the moment I lifted her. It started quickly falling.
“Carl. I would return her immediately to her place. A water lily must not be removed, lest it die.”
I quickly put her limp body back in the chair. The bar stopped moving down. A moment later, and it began to ease its way up.
“Come, Carl. It is almost time for me to cast my summoning. We have much to prepare before the assault.”
“Just a minute,” I said. “Watch out, Mongo.” I started pulling the last of the redoubt pieces from my inventory. I had multiple pieces of wood and metal in my pack. I erected an ugly, quick and dirty shelter around the cat, like a pyramid. I worked as quickly as I could.
“Carl,” Signet said. “Now.”
“Jesus, you’re worse than Bea,” I said as I put the last piece in place. The obstacle wouldn’t protect Donut from a determined mob, but this was better than nothing. Mongo jumped to the top of the neck-high, haphazard pyramid. He looked down through the jagged hole in the top and then back at me.
I put my hand against the side of the dinosaur’s head. He was still small, but at level six, he was now bigger than Donut. “I don’t know if you understand me, but you have to stay here, and you have to protect her. It’s the most important thing you’ve ever had to do. I gotta go now, but I will be back. Do you understand?”
Mongo screeched, looked down at Donut through the hole in the top of the pile of crap and screeched again.
I turned and followed Signet out the door. I was giving Mordecai a running commentary of everything that was happening. I had a plan. A loose plan I’d formulated on the fly. But I couldn’t do it on my own. I asked him what he thought, and he told me I was batshit crazy. I took that as a good sign.
Carclass="underline" Zev, are you there?
Zev: Hi, Carl. I’m watching. The whole universe is watching. We’re all rooting for you.
Carclass="underline" That’s what I’m hoping for. I need your help.
Zev: You know I can’t interfere.
Carclass="underline" No, not like that.
I explained what I wanted her to do. She told me it was impossible. I told her to try anyway.
“I’m sorry it came to this, Carl,” Signet was saying as we walked. “You surprised me yesterday when you survived. I won’t make that mistake today.”
“Why are we doing this, Signet? Why do you attack the circus every day?”
“Of the entire crew, I was the only one who made it through the attack without being altered by the poisonous cloud. And the one who got the worst of it was Grimaldi.”
“Grimaldi? So the guy who owns the circus? Last night you said you loved him.”
“I do love him. He is the love of my life. He saved me when I was a child. He took me in when nobody else would. He protected me from the high elves, took me from the Hunting Grounds, gave me a life. But most importantly, he gave me a family. As I became an adult, I grew to love him as more than just a father. We were going to share our lives together.”
“So, what happened?”
“You have to understand how horrible it was, the cataclysm. Scolopendra’s poison cloud was a Nine Tier attack. It attacked you in nine different ways. The lucky ones simply died. The others were transformed, all in different ways.”
This was the second time I’d heard that name, Scolopendra. It sounded like this was the monster at the bottom of the volcano. I filed that information away.
She continued. “Grimaldi was more than just the owner. He was also the circus’s ringleader. We were nearing the end of a show when the cataclysm came. He stood in the middle of the center ring. The others were all out there, taking their bow.” Signet took a deep breath. “He transformed into the vine. All the others in the tent, no matter how they transformed, were soon infected with the mold-covered parasites. This put them under Grimaldi’s control. The lemurs, the clowns, almost everyone. They do as he says. And if they die, the spores return to the vine, and they are reborn the next day.”
“And that’s why you attack the circus every day? Why did you survive and the others did not?”
She didn’t answer my question. “Last night I cast my spell, expecting you to perish. Tonight, I am putting my faith in you. You will have to be the one to defeat the sacrifice. I have captured Heather multiple times, but always for the purpose of killing the sacrifice. I have yet to use her blood to summon my team. I am trusting you tonight to kill Heather. While her blood won’t be as powerful as yours, it’ll be some of the most potent blood I’ve used.”
We rounded a corner and stopped. Lying asleep in the middle of the road was an unconscious… something. She was under the same Water Lily spell as Donut.
“That’s Heather?” I asked, feeling sick.
“Yes.”
“And you want me to kill her so you can take her blood and summon your people?”
“Yes, again.”
I stepped forward. “Okay. Cast your spell before she wakes up. I’ll kill her now.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Carl. I can’t influence the battle, or the spell doesn’t work.”
“That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”
“If it wasn’t like that, I would’ve just killed you last night.”
I swallowed. I examined “Heather.”
It—she—appeared to have once been a black bear. She wore a tattered, pink clown hat and a pleated, clown ruff around her neck, both of which appeared to be physically attached to her body. Like the lemurs, she had no skin on her face. Above her neck was nothing but exposed skull and a pair of round, red eyes.
The horrors didn’t stop there. Her two front paws had been transformed to white worms, like her claws had been replaced with mops. These were different than the worms that made up the lions’ mane. Even in sleep, they moved and undulated. I felt my gorge rise at the sight.
But most absurd of all was the bear’s two back legs, which had a pair of roller skates attached to them. She also wore a pink tutu.
Signet took a step back. “Okay, Carl. She’s going to wake up, and I will cast my summoning spell. Then you go kill her.”
Admin Note: Boss Battles that arise concurrently with secondary productions or as parts of a Quest may present themselves differently. You will still receive awards commensurate with the boss’s proper rank. If you survive, of course.
“Oh fuck,” I said.
9
The usual music and bombastic, over-the-loudspeaker announcement never came. The system was treating this just like a regular mob. But this clearly wasn’t just any old monster.
Heather the Bear!
Level 19 Neighborhood Boss!
Performing since she was a cub, Heather the Roller-Skating Bear was one of the longest-running attractions at Grimaldi’s Traveling Circus. Her retirement had been only weeks away when the cataclysm hit. Now the tired, old bear has been transformed into a monstrosity, barely recognizable from her former self. She lives out her days as a hunter for the circus, seeking out juicy mobs and unsuspecting crawlers. She finds and incapacitates her prey using her overwhelming speed and strength. Then she drags her quarry back to the circus so the clowns may feed.