“Gnasher is next,” Marysue said a little hesitantly. “We only took it down once during the beta, we were level twenty-five when we did. We also brought the best damage we could get at the time.”
Gerald frowned, “That’s true Mary, but I think we can do this. Alburet can do the damage of two people with that axe right now. Gnasher is a twenty-foot-long version of these guys, it also stands five feet tall. The real issue is that it has twenty thousand health and is just as hard to damage, if not harder, than the trash we just killed.”
Alburet checked his axe’s durability, nodding as it was still over half. “Then this is going to be a real fight. Five minutes plus from the sound of it. Tiny, do you have any two-handed weapons you can use?”
Tiny shook his head, “No, master. My kind only uses shields and one-handed weapons.”
“Ah, well. Do your best then. Stacia, are you able to do any damage with your blades?”
“Aye, master,” Stacia responded, “minimal, but some. Also, would ya mind iffin I gave Bob a good hug when he gets back? It might cheer him up.”
“That’s fine, Kitten,” Alburet added, giving her a squeeze with one arm.
“Heh, we can tag team him and make his head explode,” Karen chuckled.
“Can we focus on the boss first?” Gerald asked, derailing the talk of making Bob explode. When they all quieted down he nodded, “Okay, then. Is everyone ready?”
Once everyone nodded Gerald led them down the tunnel. It twisted down and around a bit before they came to a football field sized cavern. The glow from the ceiling in here was brighter, allowing everyone to marvel over the crystalline lattice that was laced through the walls. What really caught the eye, though, was Gnasher as it slowly moved about the place. Alburet figured if it was real it would easily have had the same mass as an earth hauler at a mine. Each step the thing took caused a grinding noise that was just short of painfully loud and shook the floor under their feet.
“That thing is fucking massive,” Karen breathed out in awe. “Makes me want to get a saddle and a twenty-millimeter autocannon strapped to it. Am I right? I know I’m right.”
The image she conjured with those words brought a snort of laughter from Alburet. “It’s broad enough to mount multiple swivel guns to the sides. It could easily carry a handful of passengers that way.”
“Guild transport?” Gerald chuckled before shaking his head. “That would so break the game, but damn, it would be fun.”
Marysue pursed her lips, “I guess I would steer it, then. Goodness knows I don’t want to shoot stuff.”
Fluff giggled, “I can just see it painted with the guild emblem. Marysue driving while the rest of us lay down fire along the sides, blasting undead in the Dead Lands.” The whole group chuckled over the image for a moment, the tension they had felt on seeing Gnasher evaporating.
“Okay, this is it. Is everyone ready?” Gerald asked, getting nods from the others. “Okay. I’ll lead off. It didn’t have any special mechanics during beta. I hope they didn’t change that.” He twisted his shoulders slightly then started into the room, leading with his shield.
Everyone followed him in, the damage dealers all spreading out some, so they could get at the sides of the beast when Gerald engaged it. Marysue stopped a few yards back, making sure she had everyone in range for her healing spells. When Gerald got to within twenty feet of Gnasher it turned its mouth towards him and started forward. Gerald bashed his shield into the side of Gnasher’s mouth as they collided. A horrible scraping sound echoed briefly through the room as metal teeth slid off the metal shield. The normal grinding of Gnasher as it moved any foot was so loud as to make conversation all but impossible.
Alburet stopped next to Gerald, reaching out to buff him with Demonic Vengeance to help do all the damage they could to the boss. Once Gerald got three hits in, Fluff, both Tinys, Stacia, and Karen all started attacking it. Alburet held back another few seconds before he triggered his flame ability on his axe and swung at the beast. His attack pulled a little over a hundred health off plus a little more in fire damage.
Alburet kept an eye on Gerald, noting that even with the shield he was taking a fair amount of damage from Gnasher. Marysue was keeping up with it without issue at the moment, so Alburet went back to focusing on the boss. A little over a minute later they got Gnasher’s health down to 14,987/20,000. When they kicked it under the fifteen thousand mark, Gnasher let out a horrendous roar before launching itself a few feet into the air. When it came down, the shock of it hitting the ground knocked the group onto their backs as well as pushing them back a good dozen feet.
Gnasher wasted no time attacking Gerald as he tried to regain his feet, forcing Gerald to stay on his knees to block the attacks. Tiny got to his feet and let out a roar himself, taunting Gnasher to him. Gnasher turned around striding towards Tiny, finally allowing Gerald to regain his feet. Marysue used her area heal to give them all back the few hundred life they lost from the stomp attack. Tiny blocked the first attack by Gnasher as Gerald taunted it back, snarling at the pain Marysue’s spell inflicted on him.
Alburet was happy that Gnasher didn’t have a tail, as he could only imagine what damage would have been done to the group with the boss turning around like that. Once Gerald had Gnasher again, the others closed in and started to damage the boss. Alburet reflected that the fight was a little disappointing, there were no flashy mechanics here, just a flat tank and spank fight. He did muse that this was only a level twenty to twenty-five dungeon, so maybe that was fine for now. Plus they had, after all, included the stomp attack since beta apparently.
The next two minutes went by with no real trouble as they got Gnasher down to half life. When they got close to tipping it over, Alburet decided he wanted to try something. He turned and ran away from the boss. As he was doing so he heard Gnasher roar. He turned around a little over twenty feet away to watch Gnasher impact the ground again. Both Tinys, Stacia and Fluff went flying back while being knocked prone. Karen stumbled, but stayed on her feet as she had been getting out of the area as well. Gerald got to his knees, blocking the first attack of Gnasher. Tiny taunted it to him after regaining his feet, so that Gerald could stand back up. Alburet saw he’d taken no damage, while Karen had taken less than half of the others who hadn’t vacated the area.
Everyone got back in around Gnasher after Gerald taunted it back to him. When it dropped to within a touch of 5,000 health, all the damage ran away from it except for both Tinys. One of them taunted it around to him. Gerald was about to object when he realized why Tiny had done so and ran away. A few seconds later, both Tinys were thrown back and away from it. As Gnasher started after them Gerald taunted it immediately back to him.
A moment later the guild icon was flashing. Alburet blinked at it and managed to trigger it between swings.
Marysue:
It’s too loud for you all to hear me. I’m out of mana.
Alburet cursed as he edged over to Stacia. He leaned in next to her on his next swing, shouting to be heard. “Go tell Gerald to trade aggro off with both Tinys. It’s the only way, he won’t survive the damage otherwise. I’ll tell Tiny.”
Stacia nodded as she ran for Gerald, dropping her meager damage to do so. Alburet stopped swinging to run to the Tiny that was closest to him. He leaned in to yell, “Back, both of you. As far back as you can. Trade aggro off between your bodies and Gerald. Marysue is out of mana.”
Tiny nodded and broke for the wall at a run. As he did Alburet went back to damaging Gnasher, waiting to move with the beast. A few seconds passed with Gerald’s life dropping steadily before Gnasher finally turned towards the Tiny that was furthest away. Fluff and Karen were taken by surprise but adjusted, following Gnasher as it stomped over to Tiny. The next minute was easy as the damage dealers just walked along beside Gnasher as it adjusted targets a few seconds after getting to the next tank in line for the rotation.