A/N: Again, not much to say. Onwards!
Chapter 6
By the time they arrived at the fourteenth floor, they were very tired. All of their health bar and mana bar are full thanks to their spells, but their stamina isn't holding up.
"This is surprisingly hard," Clarisse said. With the swarm of fired based monsters here, she took charge of most of the tanking. But it's taking its toll on her and now she's tired.
"No shit," Nico wheezed. "But I think we're almost there. After this one, it's the end of the Muspelheim Dungeon."
"It better be." Frank grumbled. "I don't think I have enough energy to walk up the stairs."
"My knees are killing me." Leo groaned.
"Come on guys." Percy said as he tried to boost their morale, but everyone was just too tired, including him. "Just two more floors. Then we'll get to the end."
"This shit better be worth it." Annabeth grumbled. "If I see some more Flaming Spiders, I'm out of here."
They managed to pick themselves up and went towards the end of the room. After the previous floors, Percy had expected this was going to be their toughest challenge yet. But no enemies spawned. The entire floor was empty.
"No enemies?" Jason asked tiredly. That seems like the case, but it's too good to be true. And when that's the case, it usually is.
"Keep an eye out," Percy said. "Thalia, stay in front of us. The rest of you stay alert."
"You don't have to tell me twice." Artemis said as she readied her bow.
"Don't worry, Percy will handle it." Annabeth said with a slight edge to her tone. Was she angry at Percy for not telling her about the class he's currently using?
The Invoker class did so much during their battles. It provided the damage and buffs that they needed. But the combinations of reagents still had Percy confused. Sometimes he would've accidentally conjured a different spell and sometimes his fingers kinda twitched and put in different reagents than the one he wanted to use.
The silence was eerily quiet except for the sound of their footsteps and heavy breathing. By the time they reached the end of the room, Percy didn't realize he'd been holding his breath.
He breathe out a sigh of relief. "Looks like it's a free floor." Percy said.
Everyone looked relieved. Finally they had a chance to catch their breath. "It's like the game is telling us to prepare for the final fight." Frank said.
Annabeth nodded. "Whatever we're facing next won't be easy. Prepare to bring your A-game."
"I have been bringing my A-game." Bianca moaned.
"Keep it up then." Annabeth continued. "As you see from the name of the Dungeon and the monsters that we faced, the boss is probably going to be a fire based Dungeon Boss. Prepare accordingly and get ready."
Even though no one said anything, they could feel the tension in the air. They were glancing back and forth between Percy and Annabeth, as if they were thinking to themselves like, Annabeth is pretty good at this. Why isn't she the party leader?
To be honest, Percy didn't mind. If Annabeth had any problems with it, she should've told Percy and he would've let her be the party leader. But maybe that's just Annabeth's slight resentment towards him about the Invoker class that creates this negative vibe between the two.
"Ready?" Percy asked his team. Most of them looked weary, but they all nodded as they climbed up the staircase.
They arrived at the rooftop of the building. Based on the unfinished concrete pillars and metal rods laying around, Percy guessed that they builders meant for this parking lot to be higher before it got scrapped.
Percy looked over to his left. The sky was starting to light up as dawn was approaching. Percy had lost track of how much time has passed since they'd entered the Dungeon. The light of the dawn sky was providing them with better light as Percy scanned their battleground.
Half finished pillars were scattered around the floor, some were tall and some were barely knee high. There were stacks of wood piled up mostly to the sides of the floor. The wall was just a cement barrier at the height of Percy's waist.
Now that he was outside, he could hear the crowd at the Ground Floor. Jason glanced over to the bottom. He whistled. "That's a crowd."
They looked over to see that people have gathered around the abandoned building. Some were watching their Dungeon raid being streamed live in front of thousands of audience. There were news vans parked outside and cameramen waiting for something to film.
"How come I didn't notice them when we were inside?" Nico asked.
"We've been too busy with the raid." Piper said. "I didn't know that it's almost sunrise."
"Time flies by when you're having fun," Leo grinned.
"This is your idea of fun?" Jason raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you supposed to be scared of fire?"
"What do you mean?"
"You did explode yourself to death in the Rookie Showcase."
"Ah, I remembered that." Hazel said. "The news were like, 'Crazy Kid Barely Does Anything With Big Spell'. Or something like that."
"Hey!" Leo exclaimed. They all cracked up.
Percy took a deep breath. "Well guys, we're fucking tired, we're on the last floor and there's a whole bunch of people watching us. Might as well give them a hell of a show."
They nodded. It seems like they bonded closer in such a short time. For a better or for worse, Percy hoped it was a good thing.
Line Break
Percy could feel the Dungeon Boss before he could see it.
These AR Glasses are incredible. They send signals to your brain that you can feel something cold, but the Glasses tells your brain that it is in fact, hot. So you're gonna feel that something as hot.
As they walked towards the middle of the rooftop, the air seemed to get hotter. It had been the temperature of a cool dawn a few minutes ago, but now Percy felt like he'd stepped into a microwave.
"Is it just me, or is this place getting hot?" Frank panted.
"Fire based boss, remember?" Annabeth said.
"Fighting in this heat will be difficult." Zoe muttered. "Any chance you guys have some kind of ice spell that could lower the temperature?"
"Unless you want to be frozen in place," Percy said. "Then no."
"Let's just finish this so we can get out of this stinking hellho-" Clarisse gets interrupted something hit her and sent her flying towards Percy and the other rear liners.
Stinking hellhole?! A voice seemed to echo all around them. The Dungeon Boss finally materialized in front of them.
The boss looked like something that came out of a movie. He's a ten foot tall giant and looked like he's made out of flames and molten lava. He had the body of hardened magma with little spurts of flames coming out of him every now and then. On his shoulders were fiery spikes that made him look like a flaming peacock.
His head was decorated with a black mask/crown hybrid. The mask looked metal because it was glowing from the heat. It had the shape of a skull with the horns of a bull coming out of the mask.
In his hand is a giant blade that looked suspiciously like a flaming surfboard. If they take a hit from that sword, Percy doubt it would deal damage no less than half of their health bar.
Percy read the name above his head. "Surtr." He muttered. "You need to get some vowels in your name."
Silence! Surtr roared. You dare challenge me in my realm?
"The parking lot?" Leo asked. "Sick realm."
Surtr roared defiantly as he moved to strike them down with his giant fiery surfboard.
Percy reacted quickly and used two Quas reagents with an Exort reagent to invoke the spell Ice Wall.
Ice Wall is a spell that, as the name suggests creates a wall of ice. It acts as a barrier and a way to block attacks or halt enemy movements.
"Get into positions!" Percy shouted. The others scrambled away to their positions. The standard positioning of the teams in a raid usually have their tanks up front, followed by the damage dealers behind them. Then to their flanks, the magic damage dealers are placed and the support group, or rear liners, are placed as far back as possible in the range of their spells.
"Clarisse!" Percy shouted. "Take that thing's aggro!"
"I'm working on it, Prissy!" Clarisse shouted through their teamspeak, a function of the AR Glasses that allows party members to communicate with each other without other people hearing it.
The wall of ice shattered as Surtr kicked it down. He swung his sword in a downwards position, in which Frank met him halfway with his shield raised.
"Holy shit!" Frank cursed. "This thing packs a punch!"
Percy watched as a chunk of Frank's health bar was depleted. "Hazel, Will, focus on healing the front lines. Focus your buffs on them. Piper, we're gonna focus on everyone else."
It looks likes Frank has aggro for now as Surtr kept his eyes on Frank. With every strike, Frank deflected successfully. His health bar depletes every time but gets countered with Will's and Hazel's heals.
"You guys, deal some damage." Percy said. Annabeth, Reyna, and Jason moved swiftly with their weapons at the ready. Nico and Bianca casted spells, causing all kinds of elements clashing in together. Lightning, fireballs, ice shards, flying boulders, and everything. It looked like a swirling mixture of anime powers and CGI effects. Leo on the other hand insists on using fire-based spells.
"Leo!" Percy shouted with a slight bit of annoyance. "Don't you have any other spells to use?"
"But these are my big damage spells!" Leo argued.
"They won't be any big damage if you keep hitting it with fire." Annabeth said as she slashed at Surtr's leg before jumping away to avoid being stepped on.
"Fine." Leo grumbled as he switched to ice and water spells, which are pretty effective towards fire elements.
Surtr roared in anger as he raised his sword up, readying for an attack. All of Percy's hair at the back of his neck stood up as his instincts took over. "Back up!" He shouted. "Avoid that attack!"
Most of them managed to get out of the way, except Frank who was way too close to Surtr.
"Frank!" Percy shouted.
Surtr swung his sword down in a cleaving motion straight at Frank. Percy glanced at Frank's health bar. If he took this hit, he won't survive it.
"Holy Barrier!" Will shouted out. A wall of white light then came in between Frannk and Surtr. Surtr's attack hit the wall of light and it shattered like glass, but it gave Frank enough time to get out of the way.
Holy Barrier is a skill specific to the Priest class. It creates a wall of light that negates an enemy attack for a specific number of damage. It's sort of a last resort for Priest classes.
"Thanks for that." Frank grunted. "You saved my ass."
"Don't be so grateful." Will said grimly. "That barrier was meant to hold at least five thousand damage before shattering."
"You're telling me this thing does five thousand damage in a single attack?" Jason asked incredulously.
"No, just that one." Percy panted. "We need to watch out for that downwards strike. That's the only one that can possibly kill us in one hit. Will, how long until you can cast that thing again?"
"Ten minutes." Will said.
"If he uses it again, we'll use Piper's Holy Barrier to hold. If it comes down to it, we just have to hope that he won't be using it again." Percy said.
"Hope," Artemis muttered. "We're in the face of a Dungeon Boss, and you're hoping."
"Yeah well, sometimes you gotta wing it." Percy said. "Keep up the damage!"
Percy brought up three reagents: two Wex and one Exort to invoke the spell Alacrity. It's a spell that gives a buff that increases damage and attack speed to its target.
Percy watched as all of his party member's status bar had the Alacrity buff on them. The damage output of their party suddenly rise tremendously.
Surtr's health bar had gone by one fifth of its full value. They still have a long way to go and Percy wasn't sure he could hold out much longer.
"We can't win like this." Jason grumbled. "He's too tanky."
I shall win! Surtr claimed.
Percy used three Quases and invoked the spell Cold Snap, at which Surtr will be frozen for half as second for every fifty damage he takes.
With all the incoming damage coming from them, it looked like Surtr was having a very bad lag.
I - shall - kill - you - all! He got one word for each time he was unfrozen before he's frozen again.
Percy watched as Surtr's health bar goes down at a rapid pace. "Switch tanks!" Percy said. Frank moved out of the way as Thalia stepped in. Surtr's aggro was still on Frank, so he was still focused on him but Thalia was ready.
"Warrior's Challenge!" Thalia shouted out as a circle of red bursts outwards at a set radius from Thalia, hitting no one but Surtr.
Surtr growled as he sets his eyes on Thalia as his new target.
Warrior's Challenge is a skill that 'taunts' the enemy. It's similar to drawing aggro. It is to make sure that the enemy is focused on the tank rather than anything else. And if the enemy decides to attack someone else, they're hit with a powerful counter attack. Most tanks has a similar skill that functions like this, categorized as Taunt Skills.
"Will, focus your healing on Thalia." Percy said. "Hazel, you help Frank recover. Nico, how long are we on your Root?"
"A few seconds." Nico grunted.
"I'm gonna need a better answer than a few seconds." Percy grumbled as he casts Sunstrike at Surtr. It took a good chunk of his health.
"Eight seconds." Nico said.
"By the time Nico casts Root, unleash hell on Surtr. We're going to get him to his Second Phase." Percy said.
"Just when I think it's about to get easier." Clarisse said with a chuckle.
"Five seconds." Nico counted down.
Percy prepared his most powerful spell: Chaos Meteor.
"Three,"
"Everyone get ready!" Percy shouted.
"Two,"
Surtr then roared. You shall perish!
"One." Nico casted Root. Green tendrils of energy erupted from the ground and lashed itself around Surtr's neck, arms, legs and body, disabling his movements entirely.
"Go!" Percy shouted. He casts his spell, Chaos Meteor. The big meatball appeared out of nowhere and hit Surtr right on his gut as he let out a big Oof!
The others went to work. All kinds of hell broke loose as they tried to deal as much damage as possible. Jason and Reyna worked as a team as they slashed and hacked at Surtr.
Annabeth was a demon. She moved faster than Percy's eyes could follow. Everywhere she went, deep gashes and cut were left all across Surtr's body. She weaved in and through of the fire demon with relative ease.
Nico summoned legions of undead to fight for them, though they did minimal damage. Leo, though unhappy, sent torrents of water mixed with ice shards at Surtr's face. Percy never knew there was such a combination between spells, but Leo pulled it off.
Bianca was keeping up remarkably. As a Magician, her spells are mainly for crowd control and work with multiple enemies. But even with a single enemy only, she made it work. Bianca casts a spell called Lucky Shot to all of their melee front liners. Then she used Hall of Mirrors on everyone, in which a small mirror appeared on everyone's shoulders.
Lucky Shot is a buff that increases the chance of getting a critical hit with each strike, perfect for damage dealers.
Hall of Mirrors is another buff. If it's cast onto an ally, the ally has a small chance of repeating the last attack they used onto an enemy. For example, if Percy used Chaos Meteor, there's a small chance that the Hall of Mirrors will repeat that attack for Percy, so there's double meteors.
It's a very good combination, with Hall of Mirror's secondary attack have the chance to also deal the critical damage from Lucky Shot.
Thalia had been relieved from Surtr' momentarily thanks to Nico's Root. Although Vanguards don't have that much offensive power, they can also deal damage. Frank and Thalia did as much as they could while also minimizing their movements so that they could recover their health bars.
Except for Clarisse, who is a Monk. She fights using her fists and feet, because Monk classes don't really use weapons. But to make up for that, Monks have spells with short cooldowns, making it spammable. Clarisse casted so many spells as a Monk that Percy was having a hard time to catch everything.
Percy watched as Surtr's health bar dropped below the halfway point, turning yellow.
The Second Phase.
He waited for something to happen, but nothing did. Surtr didn't gain any buffs and he didn't get any stronger.
The Root spell that Nico casts can last up to fifteen seconds if they're not cut down or interrupted. The spells is almost wearing down.
"Back up!" Percy said. "The Root is - agh!" Percy felt something explode behind him, which sent him forward. His eyesight and hearing went blurry after that as Percy struggled to stand up.
All Percy heard through the team speak was: "Behind us! Behind us!"
Percy stood up and tried to get his bearings. He looked over to where Surtr is and he'd broken free of his Root. He looked over towards where he, Hazel, Piper and Will were. A swarm of Fire Demons have come from the staircase behind them and were surrounding them.
They were now trapped.
Percy watched as the back lines tried to fend the Fire Demons away, but with no use. They're support classes and don't have that many offensive spells as well as not a lot of health.
"Clarisse," Percy said groggily as he still tries to get his vision straight on stop doubling. "Protect our back lines! Nico, Leo, focus on Surtr. Bianca, help clear the back lines. There's a load of them."
"Got it!" Bianca and Clarisse said simultaneously.
"Annabeth!" Percy called. "Split the damage dealers into two teams. We're getting overwhelmed in the rear. You take control of the second one."
Annabeth cursed. "Give me a moment." Annabeth said as she switched to her Enchanter class. "Jason! Zoe! You guys are with me. We're going to handle the back lines. Percy, I trust you to watch the heals for us, okay?"
"Got it." Percy said. The teams were now split. Annabeth, Clarisse, Bianca, Jason and Zoe were on one team, while Frank, Thalia, Artemis, Leo, Reyna and Nico were on one team.
Percy, Piper, Will and Hazel were in charge of supporting both of them.
"Will, you go with Annabeth. Piper, you handle the healing for Frank and Thalia. We need them as dedicated healers." Percy turned towards Hazel. "We need to watch out for both parties and help out on where is needed. Adjust your positions accordingly."
The three nodded and went to work. Percy took in the situation they were in at once.
Surtr was now free from the Root and was bombarding Thalia with attacks. If this keeps on, Thalia won't survive another minute.
Annabeth was trying her best to hold against the horde of monsters, but there were too many of them. Clarisse couldn't tank everything and she'll be overwhelmed.
Percy dubbed Annabeth's party as Party One while his party as Party Two.
"Party Two, switch tanks!" Percy said taking a good look of the situation they were in. "Hazel, head over to Party One and support their healing. Jason, Zoe, increase your output."
"We can't do any better than this!" Jason shouted.
"I'll help." He applied the Alacrity buff onto the entirety of Party One. "Keep the damage up!"
Surtr shout out defiantly. My minions will crush you like bugs! He said out loud. Percy grunts as he casts Cold Snap at Surtr, causing him to move like he's having a seizure.
"Artemis, use Rapid Fire." Percy said.
"But my damage will be less," Artemis panted.
"You can stun him for an entire five seconds. Just do it." Percy said. Artemis nodded and uses Rapid Fire.
As the name suggests, Rapid Fire enables you shoot arrows without an arrow nocked on your bow. Just pull the string and the arrow will be right there waiting to be fired. It increases an Archer's fire rate but at the cost of lowering their damage.
But for Cold Snap, you don't need huge amount of damage. Fifty is enough, which is more than enough for the damage output of Artemis' Rapid Fire.
"Percy! Clarisse will be overwhelmed!" Annabeth said.
Percy cursed. He used another spell from his arsenal, two Exort reagents and one Quas reagents. He invoked the spell Summon: Forge Golem. Out of nowhere, a Golem exploded into the scene and roared. The Golem was almost as high as Surtr and was made out of hardened magma.
Summon spells varies on what it actually summoned. There are a lot of monsters and animals that could be summon and they all have a variety of functions. The Phoenix summon, for example, can heal allies for a certain amount while the Kraken summon can root enemies to the ground.
The Forge Golem summon creates a Golem at Percy's disposal that can attack and act as a tank, due to its high health bar.
"Go help them!" Percy ordered the Golem. The Golem lumbered over towards Party One and stepped on the Fire Demons.
"What in god's name is that?" Zoe asked.
"A chance for you guys to catch your breath." Percy said. "But against that crowd, it won't last very long."
True to his word, the Golem was quickly getting overwhelmed as the Fire Demons attacked and climbed onto it.
Back to Party Two's situation, Surtr health bar was going down at a snail's pace. Percy was getting tired and so were the others. By Percy's estimate, Surtr's health bar is now at thirty percent and it will take a while before it will decrease any further, now that their whole team was split into two groups.
"This isn't going very well." Thalia grunted as she stabbed Surtr in the gut.
Then, Surtr raised his sword. A familiar move that had almost depleted Frank's health bar.
"Everybody back up!" Reyna shouted and they all did. But this time, Surtr charged after them.
"Piper! Use your barrier!" Percy shouted.
The Holy Barrier popped in between them and Surtr, but Surtr struck through it as if it was nothing. The strike sent some of them flying a few metes back. Their health was extremely low and critical.
"Tree of Life!" Hazel announced. A tree sprouted at where Hazel was standing. It was brilliant green and let out shimmering a green light that imbued everyone with a Heal Over Time buff, at which their health bars will be healed at set intervals.
"Thanks for that," Percy grunted. Percy looked over to his allies to see that they were all laying on the floor, probably too tired to get up. Surtr stood over them.
You will now perish!
Annabeth and Party One were too far away to help. Hazel's heal won't provide them with enough health to survive Surtr's attacks.
Chaos Meteor has a more than a minute of cooldown, so it'll be up in fifteen seconds.
Percy worked out the combo in his head. This will work, provided he had enough mana.
Surtr raised his sword, but Percy was quicker. He casts the spell Deafening Blast followed by another spell, EMP.
Deafening Blast is a concussive wave of energy that pushes the enemy backwards while inflicting the status effect of Disarm, in which the target is unable to use any attacks until the status effect wears off. The spell required the reagents of one Quas, one Wex, and one Exort.
EMP is a spell that creates a charge of electromagnetic energy that detonates within an area. The detonation drains the mana of the enemy while dealing damage equal to the mana it drains. In turn, the mana drained from said enemy restores Percy's own mana. The closer the enemy is at the center of the detonation, the more mana is drained. The spell requires three Wex reagents.
Surtr roared as he went over towards Percy. Certainly, Percy had aggro now. Surtr struck at Percy, but Percy quickly invoked the spell Mirror Image with one Quas and one Wex.
Mirror Image is a spell that creates an imperfect duplicate of the caster. By imperfect, the duplicate will be all blue. The duplicate will split and mimics whatever the caster does, but with no effect and damage. It's useful to bait out enemies into attacking the false target.
Surtr attacked the duplicate while Percy got read for his massive combo. He just hopes he doesn't mess this up.
Percy used the spell Tornado and threw it towards Surtr, at which it lifted him off the air for a few seconds. In that time, Percy casted Sunstrike and EMP again in rapid succession. Because both of the former spells require a moment to fully deal damage, Percy timed it well with the Tornado so that the damage is dealt to Surtr just as soon as he landed.
As Surtr was starting to land, Percy casted Cold Snap at Surtr along with Chaos Meteor. When his feet touched the ground, Percy threw the spell, Deafening Blast to ensure he couldn't move.
The damage from Sunstrike, EMP, Chaos Meteor, and Deafening Blast hit Surtr all at once, reducing his health to fifteen percent. The Third Phase.
But Percy wasn't going to let him do anything in the Third Phase.
Percy used the item, Refresher Shard. A very rare item that resets all the cooldown of Percy's spells in an instant so they'll be usable again. The catch is that the Refresher Shard is just a one time use item that will disappear as soon as it's used.
Percy used it and all his spells came off cooldown.
Percy summoned another Forge Golem to hold Surtr down as he casted another Sunstrike and Chaos Meteor towards Surtr. Both of the spells hit exactly at the same time, taking another chunk of Surtr's health.
12 percent.
Percy threw a Deafening Blast at Surtr before casting another EMP, draining his mana and dealing damage.
9 percent.
"Percy! We're being overrun!" Annabeth shouted in teamspeak, but Percy could barely hear it over the sound of his own heartbeat.
Percy casted Tornado onto Surtr again, sending him flying to the air. As he crashed down to the floor, Percy put the Alacrity buff onto the Golem so it hits harder.
Eight percent.
Six percent.
Five percent.
Surtr beheaded the Golem with his sword and went straight for Percy. Only eight more seconds. He needed to hold out for eight more seconds.
Percy rolled out of the way and casts Ice Wall in between him and Surtr. Surtr roared in anger as he struck the wall down, which slowed him down.
Five more seconds.
He tried striking Percy again, but again Percy casts Mirror Image onto himself to confuse Surtr. But this time, Surtr guessed right and slammed Percy across the floor.
Four more seconds.
Surtr rushed over towards Percy, his downwards cleaving attack is ready. Percy tried backing away, but there was no time.
Three seconds.
"Percy!" A voice yelled, but Percy didn't know who it was. As Surtr's sword went down on Percy, the voice shouted out. "Angelic Call!"
White wings appeared from Percy's side and shielded him from Surtr's attack and didn't shatter.
Percy wasted no time. "Sunstrike." He muttered. The spell hit Surtr straight on as his health bar dropped to zero.
Percy let out a sigh of relief as his UI display read:
Dungeon Complete!
"That was tiring." Percy said.
A/N: And thought I'd end it there.
