Boss Fights 3.1

Outside of Book Brothers the spring sun was bright and the weather was just cool enough to have a slight chill to it. Maybe it was the skill books in my arms, maybe it was learning [Aikido], or simply having a friend and partner, but even the people on the streets seemed happier. I actually broke into a skip – just because. However, I didn't skip very far before I was interrupted by a pop-up.

[From repeated acts of nimbleness your AGI has increased by 1!]

A giggle escaped as I covertly dismissed the window. "I can't believe it! I just got a point of AGI for skipping."

James looked at me dumbfounded. "Really?"

"Yup. Come to think about it. Why are we just walking? We could jog and work our VIT." And get back sooner so we could learn our skillbooks.

"You can jog if you want." Then James started skipping.

I broke into a slow jog to keep up. "James what are you doing?" Boys did not skip. Alright, that sounded sexist even in my head, but it was true. Skipping was a girl thing and a young girl thing at that. It was already uncool for girls by middle school. A boy skipping was asking to be laughed at even in elementary.

"I'm skipping. Duh." James laughed good-naturedly. "Seriously, I need agility much more than I need vitality. I'm below the minimum I need to learn [Jeet Kune Do]."

"Right." I shrugged. When you can't beat them, join them. I started skipping along with him. It was for his benefit. A boy and girl skipping together didn't look near as silly as a boy skipping alone. Instead we looked like a couple, but I doubted we'd run into anyone from Winslow.

"Really, you don't have to skip. If you'd rather jog, then jog," offered James as we skipped along.

"No, it's okay. It's fun to skip. I haven't done this in years." I hadn't smiled like this in years.

[Relationship with James Barron has increased]

Thank you bullshit powers. Oh well, if we were going to do this, may as well do it right. "So, did I tell you I picked up a [Singing] skill?" I launched into what little I could remember of Skip to My Lou.

James jumped right in and sang along with me. Neither of us had great singing voices, but it was fun. We sang and skipped all the way to the Ship's Graveyard. I even earned [Singing 3] in the process. While parts of me focused on training my Master skills, skipping, singing, and just enjoying the day; another part of me was brooding. Something wasn't right. I hadn't been this silly since summer camp. Was something wrong with me? I felt different after having [Aikido] downloaded into my head, but I couldn't blame it on the book. I'd skipped a few steps on the way to Book Brothers as well. So maybe I was just happy? Would the universe come to the stop if I was happy? When had being miserable become my normal state of being? The answer to that was obvious – Emma. Letting her dictate my happiness was giving her too much power. So maybe I should just let myself enjoy life again. On the other hand, something was certainly different. My body felt wrong. Too tight.

When we arrived at our spot in the Ship's Graveyard, I knew what I needed to do. "Hey James. Let's stop and stretch out. We need to talk." I immediately fell into doing a set of stretches that I'd picked up with the [Aikido] book. I slid to the deck, spread my legs as wide as I could manage, knowing it wasn't anywhere near good enough, and reached for my left toes.

"S-stretch?" James stared at me with a deer-in-the-headlights look. "Yeah, I guess we really should." He sat down to my side and started copying my stretching.

I nodded approval and switched to my right leg. "Well, first thing is this right here. This stretching. Ever since I read the aikido book, I've felt like it was something I needed to do. And now that I'm doing them, my body feels wrong. Too stiff. I feel like I should be far more flexible than I am."

James continued to copy my movements. "I guess that really isn't that surprising. Most martial artists are very limber. You have to be to do the moves they do."

I shifted to stretching center. I couldn't even get my forehead to the deck. "You're missing my point. I didn't just get the skill. Apparently I picked up some compulsions. They're not overpowering, I suppose I could fight them, but I don't want to. Not stretching and being stiff instead of limber is a bad thing. Looking back, I'm amazed that I didn't hurt myself when I threw myself into jogging every day without stretching. I now have a desire to be limber, but I didn't before I learned [Aikido]. I didn't just learn skills. It changed the way I think." I shifted to a one-legged kneel and started my hip stretches.

"Hmm." James again shifted to copy my stretches. "I see. Do you feel the need to drink a case of Mountain Dew and stay up all night coding?"

"What? No. I told you that the [Computer Programming] felt more compartmentalized. Like it has its own allocated section of memory. [Aikido] installed itself into my BIOS." I froze in my stretch as my words hit me. "Oh my God, did I just say that?"

James nodded. "Yeah, you did. I think you just convinced me. Fuck. I'm still going to learn the Jute Kune Do book after we stretch. You found some drawbacks, but honestly if you'd learned aikido the normal way, through years of effort, don't you think you would have acquired the same desire for flexibility? Actually, it might just be that mainlining all that knowledge is a little like spending a few weeks or months focusing on the one thing. I can't say for sure, but I'd guess things will normalize in a few days as things sink in. Or when more skills get added."

I took a long deep breath in, held it and let it go. "Okay, I see where you're going." I shifted my legs to stretch my other hip. "So, by that logic if I'd spent the time to learn [Computer Programming] to the level the book gave me, then naturally the vocabulary would creep into my language. So, there are changes, but they're due to learning the skills quickly?"

"Right. At least I think that's right." James shrugged. "Anyway, [Gamer's Mind] is already changing the way I think. Plus, when I swapped out the [Apprentice Undead Hunter] title, I could almost feel a hatred for the undead draining away. Maybe we just need to watch each other. Like spotting in lifting weights. We keep each other honest. Make sure we don't get overwhelmed, keep an eye out to see if the side-effects wear off in time or not."

I stood up and started doing bends: left, right, center, repeat. "Good thing we're partners then."

I picked up another AGI point for stretching before we were done and broke out the books. Hoyle's Book of Games and The Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders were easier reads. Acquiring the [Gambling] skill didn't come with the urge to go throw my money into a slot machine. [Entomology lvl 5] gave me an almost encyclopedic knowledge of thousands of insects, but other than a better appreciation and understanding of them, didn't really change me. Learning [Acrobatics] from Balance, Flexibility and Grace proved to be a similar experience to learning [Aikido], integrating into me at a deep level. After learning [Acrobatics], my sense of balance and stance felt like they were shouting at me. I was hyperaware of where I stood relative to everything. I also couldn't resist putting it to test with a front flip. I stumbled a bit on the landing, but it felt damned good. I also spotted James while he learned [Jute Kune Do], [Gambling], and [Crafting]. Like me it was the physical skills that seemed to hit harder, but James believed that [Crafting] might have given him a mild case of the tinkering bug. However, he was more interested in trying out (or was that showing off?) his new martial arts skills. He created a fresh illusion barrier for us, and we both set aside our weapons to take on the zombies hand-to-hand.

[Aikido] could be summed up in one word – awesome. I quickly learned that zombies made perfect ukes for my attacks. They all made strong over-committed attacks that broke their balance and left them wide open for any number of throws and counters. That was a good thing, because [Aikido] was very much an opportunistic and reactive discipline that capitalized on opponents' mistakes. Zombies made a lot of mistakes. Sometimes I felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of different ways I could take advantage of them. I had more than ten thousand different techniques at my disposal. Most of them didn't apply at any given time, but the zombies were so bad that I sometimes had dozens of possible moves to choose from. I was also aware that using my [Entangle] skill for 'crowd control' kept me from pushing my [Aikido] to the limits. One of the strengths of my new martial art was that it excelled at taking on multiple opponents. A part of me wanted to let all of my [Entangles] go and just wade into the zombies using throws and redirects to keep them smashing into each other. However, that also felt like a newly learned compulsion, and not one I should trust, because I was also very much aware that I sucked at [Aikido]. My body wasn't flexible enough to do many of the moves, my timing needed a lot of work, and I just plain missed sometimes.

Meanwhile, James was rocking his new [Jeet Kune Do] skill. I had bugs on all his joints, so I was very much aware of his moves as he took on zombies with his fists. He would be a nightmare for me to fight with [Aikido]. All of the techniques I'd learned focused on using my opponent's strength against them. For example, I had several techniques to counter a straight up punch to the face: ikkyo defense, nikyo defense, sankyo defense, kokyunage defense, and more. However, they all required me to blend with the attack – being fast enough to spot the attack and catch the fist. James was using some powerful quick punches that seemed to explode almost out of nowhere. He also mixed that up with quick snap kicks to knees and lower legs. My newly learned knowledge of Aikdio techniques offered me counters for everything James did, but actually pulling them off against him was beyond my current skill, even with using my bugs to map his every move.

All in all our afternoon of fighting zombies was very profitable. From the bookstore trip James gained [Observe +2]. Skipping back had earned him [Singing] and [AGI +2]. From fighting zombies he leveled up [Jeet Kune Do +3], [Physical Resistance +2], [Power Strike +2], [Light Armor Mastery +2], [Sense Danger +1], [Dodge +1], [ID Create +1], [ID Escape +1], [STR +2], [AGI +1], [VIT +1] and two levels. While fighting zombies I'd picked up [Aikido +3], [Combat Mapping +2], [Dodge +2], [Entangle +2], [Light Armor +2], [STR +1], [AGI +1], [VIT +1], and a level.

"I also leveled my [Cryptography] to 6 during the fighting and I'm a good chunk of the way to 7," I casually mentioned to James as he was getting out our evening meal.

James boggled at me. "How the hell did you manage to level [Cryptography] while we were fighting?"

"Oh, I had some of my bugs encoding random words into a pig-pen cipher while we fought." I flashed him a tired grin. Yeah, I was gaming the system, but he'd encouraged it.

He childishly stuck out his tongue at me. "You know, you're a cheating cheater who cheats."

I grabbed a celery stick and dipped it in the bowl of humus that he'd set out. "Yeah, but what's to stop you from working [Observe] while you fight? Or maybe I should learn [Chinese] and we could level that just by talking." Although I might want [Japanese] instead. I'd picked up quite a few Japenese words from learning [Aikido], but they lacked context. I knew just enough to want to learn more.

James nodded. "You learning Chinese so we can practice together is a pretty good idea, but [Observe] isn't a skill that I can grind in combat. I don't need the pop-ups blocking my view."

From there our conversation turned to the various skills we should get when we could afford more skill books and ways I could munchkin with my ability to [Multitask]. James had an interesting idea that I could use multiple teams of bugs to be translating the same message into multiple codes at once and level up [Cryptography] even faster. That one was certainly worth trying out.

It was getting late, but James wanted to do one last run with a bug army to rapid clear an entire dungeon of zombies. I wasn't all that keen on the idea. First of all the zombies weren't that vulnerable to my bugs. I'd tried commanding the maggots in them to eat faster to little effect. The zombies were already dead and their hearts didn't beat. They didn't even seem to notice black widow bites. Second, I wasn't convinced that leveling faster was even a worthy goal. We had definitely established that skills improved faster in combat with zombies than by any other method. From my perspective improving our skills was more important than levels. Especially since [Novice Hero] stopped at level 25. The points to spend on stats were useful, but I was still reluctant to spend mine when I didn't understand the system. However, James didn't just get points for stats. Every time he leveled his HP and MP increased. For that reason alone I was willing to indulge his experiment, but there were other good reasons. James thought I might get a new skill that was both an AoE, Area of Effect, and a DoT, Damage over Time. Also, we had a few close calls where one of us had been knocked down that could have gotten out of hand. Having some extra bugs on standby, even if we didn't use them to rapid clear the dungeon, was a pretty good idea.

However, what really sold me on the idea was that I'd leveled a little after we'd started up this afternoon and I was still a long way from my next level. My whole body was sore from doing [Aikido] and using my muscles in unfamiliar ways. Just sitting down and eating dinner I was already starting to get stiff. If I didn't level before we quit, I was going to be in a world of pain tomorrow. So I summoned up a swarm to make the attempt. We briefly tried storing bugs inside James's inventory, so I could bring more inside. However, his inventory wouldn't accept live bugs. That meant that to get a large swarm inside I had to pile layer after layer of bugs up on top of us. This was enough to creep even me out a little and I was getting used to having hundreds of bugs crawling on my armor. I expected James to freak, but he was remarkably calm about the whole thing.

Seven zombies immediately attacked us as soon as James opened the dungeon. Clearing them out was easy. I'd switched back to my bat and was pleased that it served quite well as a bokken. I could feel my [Aikido] knowledge telling me how to strike. We'd even toyed with the zombies a bit with me using [Rising Strike] and James batting them down with [Grounding Strike]. The combo was more fun than useful. Most of the time [Power Strike] was easier to pull off. So was [Finishing Strike]. Zombies were ridiculously easy to trip in my skirt-nets.

"Immediate area clear," I announced as James put down the last zombie that had swarmed us on entering. "I've got three on hold with [Entangle] on the ship and bugs on forty-two others throughout the zone. My bugs are chewing as best they can, but is it doing anything?"

"[Observe]." James stared at one of the zombies that I had wrapped up nearby. That zombie was currently playing host to three thousand and twelve biting bugs. "Yeah, it's working. It's showing up as a DoT effect and its hit points are slowly going down. Does that mean you got the skill?"

I flipped through my popups. "Oh yeah. I got it! I even get to name it." I tapped away at the keypad that appeared.

"So what did you name it?"

"Swarm of Doom!" Alright, I might have sounded a bit smug, but I'd earned it. "Does pretty much what you'd predicted, AoE and DoT… speaking of the DoT, how fast are the zombies going down?" I quickly looted while James did his [Observe] thing.

James consulted his watch and muttered [Observe] a few times along with making a few gestures I don't think had anything to do with his screens. "Looks like 2 to 3 HP per second, maybe five or six minutes and you'll take down every zombie in the zone."

"Okay, that's cool." I honestly didn't think my bugs would be that effective on zombies. "So… smash a few while we wait?"

James grinned. "You bet." He pointed toward the closest one. It was one of the leisure suit type zombies that didn't know disco was dead. "That one."

I commanded my bugs to let it go, and it staggered towards James. While we battled the few zombies close to us, all across the zone my bugs ate at the maggot-infested zombies. Then the zombies began to die. "They're going now. There goes three, five, seven, fifteen, half gone now, but starting to get some fresh spawns. Just a few left, but more new ones are spawning. Three originals left. Two. One. Gone."

Popups flooded my vision that I dismissed. It was my own power, yet this felt creepy to me. I'd just killed dozens of zombies in just a few minutes. Yeah, I'd killed more zombies in total throughout the day, but I'd beaten them down with my bat. This had been a mass kill. I didn't feel guilty about killing zombies, especially not simulated zombies. I already sensed more winking into existence as replacements spawned. What bothered me was how easy it had been. I could have done that to humans much more easily. It shouldn't be this easy to kill. However, we were in a combat zone with legions of the undead. I'd have to wrestle with my conscience later. We had a problem. "Shit. We didn't think this through."

"What do you mean?" James didn't seem too worried.

"I killed forty-two zombies across the zone. We've got 23 piles of loot scattered all over the place, and one of them is a blueprint. Are we just going to write that loot off?"

"Oh," said James eloquently.

"Yeah, oh." Having our entry point on the container ship was a pretty sweet deal. The non-flooded part of the ship took up only a small section of the zone. Once we cleared it, it was pretty easy to keep clear. We'd get a few pops on the ship and there was a rare scuba diving zombie type that could swim, but most of the zombies had to walk up the submerged tugboat to get to us. That gave us a nice chokepoint that forced the zombies to approach us a few at a time. If we left our happy little container ship for the shore, we'd have to deal with the maze of the Ship Graveyard. It would be a lot easier to get surrounded. We'd both learned the lesson that individuals zombies were easy to kill, but they got dangerous in large numbers. Plus it was dark now. Zombies spawned stronger at night.

"I hate to leave the loot. Especially a blueprint. We've gotten a lot better at killing them, and with your [Combat Mapping] they can't really sneak up on us."

"True." I didn't like leaving our nice tactical position on the container ship, but it should be safe enough with my combat map. "We'll go get them and use my new [Swarm of Doom] to soften them up."

"Cool. Yeah, we should be good. Let's kill some zombies."

.oOo.

Circling through the zone to pick up our loot resulted in our most intense fighting yet. Even using my skirt-nets and my [Swarm of Doom] to soften up the zombie horde we were usually fighting three to four zombies at once. I think that was partly because of [Swarm of Doom] to be honest. The faster we killed them, the faster they popped.

We had also both failed to anticipate that darkness didn't just cause the zombies to spawn at a higher level. With the overcast sky it got dark quickly once the sun set, and that made it hard to see. I found poor lighting didn't trouble me all that much. I merely put more bugs on the ground, and I aimed for the moving clusters of maggots that I sensed. However, it did affect James. I cracked open my two cold light sticks and dedicated flying bugs to carrying them above his head to give him some light. I also tasked what few fireflies I had available to lighting up zombies as they got close to us. Still, it was worth it because I was getting skill and stat checks left and right. We were almost back to the submerged tugboat when the zombies suddenly backed off.

"James, something is happening…" And I didn't like it. "More and more zombies are spawning, a bunch more, and they're all converging on a single point, and it isn't us." I pointed over to where it was happening. "They're… merging." I could feel it with my powers, they were all growing together into one big pile of maggots. I could also see it with my eyes. Not very far away on the beach the zombies were climbing one on top of each other, and flowing together. The result wasn't a dogpile of zombies, but one gigantic colossus composed of zombies. "What is that thing?"

"[Observe.] Oh SHIT! It's a boss! Legion Zombie. Level 34!"

"James get us out of here! Now." I grabbed his hand. We'd left some bugs behind when we left a zone, and they hadn't reappeared for almost five minutes. I did not want to be left behind with that thing.

"[ID Escape!]" screamed James. "Fuck! We're locked in until we kill it!"

"Or maybe you're too low level with that skill. Keep trying! I'll stall it." In fact I was already trying to stall it. I was pushing almost all my bugs to attack, but I knew how long it took my bugs to eat through a normal zombie - five minutes. This thing was much bigger.

"[ID Escape!] It's not working and we can't stay here. Come on! Let's get to the ship!"

"No, the ship's a deathtrap. That thing's too big, and the water's not that deep. He could wade in after us and we'd have nowhere to run. We need to circle around and give my bugs time to wear it down." I pulled James away from the Legion Zombie.

The problem with just running in circles was the land side was a slightly less than half-moon shape. There wasn't a lot of area to circle in. We didn't want to get caught in the corners. Which could happen too easily. The thing was lumbering towards us now, and its lurching walk was only a little slower than our running speed. Fortunately some of the beached ships were big, and it walked around them instead of climbing over.

"James? How fast is it going down?"

"Slowly." That one word huffed out as we ran conveyed a lot of emotion.

We had baited it towards the shore, now I turned and led us away from it. "How slowly?"

"Too slowly. Taylor, it has over 15,000 HP. Your bugs are hurting it a little, but it will take hours at this rate."

We didn't have hours. Maybe James with his weird power could run for hours. I couldn't. Not after fighting zombies all day. Or worse, the normal zombies might start popping again after a while. We couldn't afford that. I was pretty sure that it was not good to get bogged down fighting infantry while hiding from a tank. The creature was about two stories tall, simply too big to entangle in my skirt-nets. Hmm, maybe… a murky idea began to form. A pop-up suddenly appeared in front of me. I spared it a quick glance, then dismissed it.

"James I have a plan. It's risky, but it just might get us out of here alive. If you have any bright ideas to bring to the table, speak up now."

"I've got nothing but hit it 'til it stops moving, try to not die." He dodged around an old tire marked by my fireflies that blocked his path. "You really have a plan to kill that thing?"

"Your power thinks so. It gave me a [Tactics] skill for thinking of it." I quickly outlined my idea to him. "I think it could work. We might actually live through this."

James paused for a moment to think it over, or maybe he was just catching his breath. "I love your plan! I'm excited to be a part of it! Let's Do It!" He broke out with a strange choked laugh. "Seriously, it's a pretty good plan. I do have one suggestion to improve on it though."

"Spill it. I'm open to anything at this point."

"Before we do anything else I think we should switch back to [Apprentice Undead Hunter] and spend all our saved points on our stats. Saved points won't do us any good if we're dead, and the points I dropped on AGI earlier made a lot of difference."

Doh. So much for my 59 WIS. "Hell yeah, we should do that!"

Changing our stats meant stopping briefly to access the screen. That didn't give us much time to decide. STR to do more damage, or AGI to hit and dodge? Then my eyes fell on my 4 LUK. My plan didn't need me to be lucky, but a bit of bad luck could kill us. I knew my bad luck was real. Fuck it. I dropped all 15 of my saved points into my LUK.

The first part of my grand plan didn't involve much more than what we were doing already, running around in circles for our lives. That Legion Zombie was almost as fast as we were. I constantly shifted my bugs ahead of us to maintain a tactile map of the terrain, as well as moving my fireflies and lightstick toting bugs around to light our way. While that was happening I tested out something new. I pulled most of my bugs off the attack and compressed them into a big cloud trying to make a decoy. I wasn't sure it would work. I'd blinded some of the zombies earlier in the day with bugs, but that hadn't slowed them down much. I wasn't sure the zombies were really seeing. Fortunately, whatever senses the big bad boss zombie had, it reacted to a big cloud of bugs mashed together into child's playdoh version of a person as a target. At least it did for a little while. It was never remained fooled for long but would chase each decoy for a little while. I'd just have to make a little while be long enough. I dismissed the notice that I'd also earned a new skill [Swarm Clone] without even really reading it. I'd worry about it if I survived.

I picked our ambush point with care. It was a long straight section of path near the center of the zone that had a lot of debris on the edges, good places for hiding. "Right, James. This is where we split up. Follow the bugs to your hiding spot."

James paused and looked at me. If he was at all afraid, he was controlling it well. "Good luck, Taylor."

"Good luck, James." I turned away and whispered, "[Stealth]". Voicing the commands seemed to make them work better, and the louder the better, but that made absolutely no sense for [Stealth].

I created one short term decoy after another to lure the Legion Zombie toward our trap. It wasn't much of a trap. While we'd been running, I'd tied every one of my skirt-nets together along with my cloak-nets to make a long rope. To make doubly certain the joins were solid I had my spiders secure the knots in spider webbing. I just had to hope that my makeshift rope was strong enough to hold it, and that my bugs were fast enough with the rope to play Luke Skywalker to the Imperial Walker Zombie.

I could feel the ground shake as it stomped past me. Staying put as that huge thing walked past us chasing my decoys was one of the hardest things I've ever done. A deep primitive place inside me knew what it meant to be chased by a large predator and was screaming at me to run away. I pushed my fear into my bugs, and as the Legion Zombie stumbled past us shaking the ground, I commanded my bugs to fly.

They went up and around, wrapping my makeshift rope once, twice, three times around the creature's legs. Wasps and other fliers carried spiders and dropped them on the ropes and my spiders immediately started laying webs to further secure things while the Legion Zombie teetered, toppled and fell. That's what all my effort was directed towards, because of all the attacks James and I had at our disposal, one of them did the most damage.

"[Finishing Strike!]" I bellowed at the top of my lungs as I leapt out of my concealment and brought down my bat with all my strength on its right knee.

A part of me was aware that James had also jumped out and had attacked the thing's left knee, just like my combat map told me the zone was still clear, and the maggots inside the undead giant told me that it was still down. None of that mattered. What mattered was hitting it while it was down. I screamed out, "[Finishing Strike!]" again and again and slammed away at its knee with my bat.

I was aware of the exact moment that it recovered. It didn't try to rise, it just reached out and tried to grab me. "Retreat!" I backed away into the rubble as it gave chase. Even without its legs it dragged itself forward far faster than I expected. I scrambled as best as I could climb over the debris that formed my concealment trying to get away, but it was closing in on me.

James chose that moment to disobey my orders. While the Legion Zombie pulled its body by its arms in an attempt to reach me, James kept slamming away at it, still screaming out his own cries of "[Finishing Strike!]"

Apparently James's attacks were too much for the creature to ignore. It turned from me to scramble after James. Which made it my turn to attack. From that moment the fight was ours. It was too stupid to keep focused on one of us. Like two matadors playing a bull we took turns. When it chased James, I beat on it with my bat. When it chased me, James attacked. It must have taken another fifteen minutes to finally kill it, but we chipped away at it blow by blow until it finally lay still and then vanished leaving nothing but a pile of dust and some loot.

James and I rushed each other whooping and hollering and beating on each other's backs. We hugged more than once from the sheer joy of being alive.

Author's Note: For those of you interested during the Legion Zombie fight Taylor gained: Acrobatics +1, Aikido +1, Blunt Weapon Mastery +4, Combat Mapping +2, Dodge +4, Entangle +3, Finishing Blow +4, Light Armor Mastery +2, Power Strike +1, Rising Strike +1, Stealth +2, Swarm Clone +2, Swarm of Doom +2, Tactics 1, VIT +2, AGI +2, STR +3, 15 stat points spent for LUK +15