“Ugh! Hideous!” Sang shouted as she used her short sword to cut into the monster’s flesh. The Siren shrieked at her, but Sang felt extremely rooted to the ground. The word Resist appeared over her. Sang noticed that the Siren’s songburst was a powerful spell, but it didn’t do any damage whatsoever. Sang’s short sword, however, certainly did do damage. With each swing, Sang could see the lesser Siren’s health drop down rapidly. Without the ability to stun its prey, the Siren wasn’t particularly well defended.
“Haha! I’m free!” Van shouted as he wriggled out of his ropes. He fell off of the pole and rolled past the two Sirens who had remained behind to try and kill him. He scrambled to his feet and ran past Sang.
“Where are you going?” Sang demanded as she slashed through her foe, dealing 50 damage and killing it.
“They put all my gear in a treasure chest over there!” Van said, pointing into the darkness. “You distract them while I grab my stuff!”
“I’m going to be distracting them by killing them,” Sang replied as she switched her weapons out and drew her bow.
“Good luck!” Van said as he disappeared into the darkened cave.
“More fun for me,” Sang mumbled as she released another flaming arrow into one of the advancing Sirens. This one was shorter than the others and had begun to transform, too. It howled, but Sang was immune to the sonic burst thanks to Van’s musical buffing. She figured this kind of fight would be hard, but without the ability to inflict status damages due to her buff and the fact that she had her ears blocked, the fight was going to be mopped up rather quickly.
Sang finished killing the lesser Siren and turned her attention the one wearing the crown of seaweed. This one had transformed while Sang had been distracted. The words Siren Queen Level 18 hovered over her head. The Siren had completely transformed, to the point where it was nearly unrecognizable. Its scales were a deep red and it stood tall, nearly eight feet in length. All beauty of the creature had vanished, and what remained was a hideous and hulking creature with long, spindly arms.
“Well…that’s not great,” Sang said as she narrowly dodged the claw attack from the Siren Queen. Its arms were long enough for it to be able to reach Sang without fear of being stabbed in the torso by her blade. Sang ducked underneath the hideous creature’s grasp and scrambled back to where she had emerged from. The cave would get too small for the big monster to follow her, meaning that she could just lay on her back and shoot arrows at the creature until it died. This wasn’t the most sporting of strategies, but it would work.
Sang dodged a swinging hand again as she pressed deeper into the cave. The ceiling grew lower with each step that she retreated, making it impossible for the Siren to be able to follow. It pressed its body up against the entrance and shoved its claws in, desperately grasping for Sang, but she was unable to find her.
Sang grinned as she laid on her back and began to shoot arrows at her opponent. The words 50 damage repeated endlessly as she fired off as many arrows as she could. The Siren stepped back away from the opening and let out a powerful roar. This roar was different from the other sounds that the Sirens had been making; this one was extremely overwhelming and, while it didn’t do any damage to Sang, the sonic power was strong enough to cause the ground around her to shake impressively. A few rocks began to chip off from the ceiling above her.
“Aw crap!” Sang shouted as she realized that the Siren’s song was only getting stronger. The intensity of the singing caused more pieces of rock to come loose, almost hitting her in the skull. “Van! We gotta get out of here!” she called as she tried to retreat back the way she’d come. The rumbling was growing more fierce with each passing moment.
As she rushed toward the opening that she had come through, she felt a hand grab her and pull her backwards. At the exact time that she was pulled back, the entire opening that she had been trying to get through collapsed in front of her.
“Whoa!” she said, spinning around to see Van. “Thanks!”
“Yeah, that was a close one,” Van said. “We’re going to have to kill that thing if we’re going to get out of this place.”
Sang noticed that a timer had appeared in the right-hand corner of her UI. It read: 2 minutes to total collapse.
“Alright, let’s do this!” Sang said, rushing forward with her bow in hand. Van was rushing alongside of her, carrying his bagpipe.
“Do you have any idea how to kill that thing?” Van asked.
“Same way we kill everything, I guess,” Sang replied. “We shoot at it until it stops moving.”
“What about the regen?” Van asked, pointing at the Siren Queen’s health bar. It had filled itself all the way back up to its starting position of 1,000 hit points.
“Oh, come on, I hit that thing like six times!” Sang grumbled. As they emerged from the opening, the monster immediately noticed them and began to swipe its long claws again.
“Certain types of damage can counter regeneration. Usually, it would be fire, but since this is a water-based creature, fire won’t do as much damage as normal,” Van instructed. “We need to find some kind of weapon that can stop regeneration.”
“Like what?” Sang asked as she leapt to the side, shooting an arrow into the arm of the tall beast. The Siren Queen roared in anger, but continued her swiping assault. The good news was that the creature’s speed was significantly lower than Sang’s dodge rating, meaning that she’d be able to avoid the creature until her stamina ran out.
“Maybe some kind of… acid?”
“Where are we going to get acid?” Sang shouted as she snapped an arrow right into the throat of the Siren Queen. The words CRITICAL 150 damage appeared over the queen, but Sang could see that the health bar was already beginning to increase.
“You should have some in your alchemical kit!” Van replied as he bleated into his bagpipes, increasing Sang’s stamina by 25%.
Sang opened up her inventory and looked at the alchemical kit.
Alchemical Kit
Uses: 50
Contains: Phosphorous, Acid, Formaldehyde, Herbs, Glass
Effects: The Alchemical Kit gives any user +5 on their Alchemy skill when brewing potions or making salves.
Perfect! Sang knelt down for a second and pulled out the kit. It was a small parcel that was tightly bound, and she struggled for a moment to untangle it. “Distract it while I get the acid ready!” she ordered.
“Yo! Horrible Siren! Over here!” Van said as he ran right into its field of view. The creature hissed at him and turned its body to focus on grabbing him. Fortunately, Van also had a high dodge rating. He leapt around, narrowly avoiding getting grappled by the beast as Sang fumbled with the bottles. There were so many different colors that she wasn’t sure which one did what. The word ‘acid’ was nowhere to be found. She looked at her alchemy skill and realized that it was too low for her to be able to identify the right kinds of properties. She’d have to use a trial and error solution.
“Ahhhh!” Van shouted. Sang looked up to see that Van was in the clutches of the Siren Queen. The creature had grabbed hold of him with both of its large hands and was currently trying to drag him closer to her body. Sang didn’t have time to test around with potions and bottles, so she just did what made sense. Standing up, she chucked one of the bottles straight at the creature. The glass bottle shattered as it struck the Siren Queen, splashing liquid all over her back. A terrible hissing sound emanated from the liquid as it began to burn the queen’s flesh. The stench of cooked meet almost caused Sang to wretch as she grabbed another bottle of silvery liquid and threw it.