Ultimate Level 1

What?! Is that a threat?

Laughter echoed inside his head.

Never forget, we are one. We will discuss this further, but I will not be treated as a joke! If you choose to do so, you will find the coming days dangerous.

“Seth?”

Blinking, Max saw that all three of his teammates were watching him. “I'm sorry… lost in conversation. We’ll talk later, but for now, let’s focus.”

Tanila started to open her mouth, and Max shook his head.

“Well, let’s say Seth is right,” Fowl said. “If that massive ape is thirty feet tall and uses trees like the cat boss did those pillars, we’ll have to protect our support team.”

“You two seem to forget, I have many more spells now, and the effects are much greater.”

“Oh, I’m not forgetting,” replied their tank. “The problem is how much damage that thing can take and whether we can keep it off you once you start blasting. I have no doubt it will be stronger than the spider we faced the other day.”

Studying the area, Max tried to come up with a good battle plan while ignoring the conversation he had just had with his skill. Where they had zoned in was a tiny, twenty-foot opening with no protection except the back wall of the dungeon floor. There was a small area with no trees where they were, but that wouldn’t help.

“Tom said the boss was smart. The apes we fought on the previous two floors were good with tactics, but we overpowered them. Even worse is something no one has pointed out yet.”

“Which is?” Fowl asked.

“There is no yellow line on the ground. You can’t aggro the boss from here.”

Fowl groaned loudly, and Batrire even muttered a curse.

“Which means we have to enter its territory to fight,” Tanila stated.

Nodding, Max motioned to where they were standing. “In some ways, this would be a great spot to defend, but without a way to bring it here, we have a problem. I could go in and try to lure it, but what if it doesn’t come out?”

“Like that vampire bunny boss thing,” Batrire said. “Ogre shite, this could be way worse than that fight.”

“I really need to invest points in intelligence,” Fowl muttered. “So what’s the plan?”

“We go in. You’re in front, I’ll try to stealth, but I doubt it will be that easy. Tanila is going to be our biggest strength and weakness.”

“Why am I the weakness?” their mage asked, frowning at Max’s statement.

“Fowl’s right,” Max replied. “If that thing gets on you, I’m not sure we can pull it off. It’s not going to go down in one or two hits from your spells, and we only get one taunt with Fowl’s ring.”

“So I shouldn’t piss it off… got it,” Talina said.

Max felt like they were walking into a trap as they slowly made their way through the trees toward the boss. It was facing their direction, massive red eyes staring at them through a snarl. Its jaws had four massive fangs sticking over its lips, two each from the top and bottom.

Massive pieces of plate armor lined its forearms, shoulders, and chest. Plate armor protected the front sides of each of its quads and shins.

“At least it doesn’t have a fifteen-foot-long sword,” Fowl muttered as they got within one hundred yards of the boss.

“Stop jinxing us,” Batrire growled. “Focus, you hairy little dwarf.”

Fowl grunted but didn’t reply. Everyone was amped up about what might happen in a moment.

“It’s not moving,” Tanila said as they closed within fifty yards. “What do we do?”

“I can toss a rock,” Fowl stated. “You’re call.”

“Wait… let’s see if we can get into its clearing. There is a small area without trees in the spot its waiting.”

Everyone agreed Max was right, and each gave a slight grunt of acknowledgment.

As they approached the clearing where the boss sat frozen like a statue, it jumped to its feet and pounded its hands against the ground while roaring, sending spittle their way and shaking the ground.

“Go!” Max shouted as he let Fowl take point. He had his shield out along with his halberd, unsure what would happen once the fight started.

The boss leaped into the trees, grabbed onto one of the branches above, and started climbing.

“What the–”

“Get to the middle!” Max yelled while staying close to Tanila and Batrire as they moved to the center of the clearing.

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Another loud roar came from the treetops, and suddenly, dozens of other cries that responded to the boss’s echoed through the trees.

“Ogre shite! There are more apes!” Batrire yelled as they all began to turn and watch shapes start to come down the trees.

The boss had disappeared into the canopy above, and Max tried counting as apes like the ones they fought on the second level descended the foliage and branches up high.

“Ten.. no eleven… wait… fourteen.”

Max kept watching as apes began to climb down the trees faster than he would have imagined was possible.

“Tanila! Start taking them out! Fowl, protect her! Batrire, stay behind me!”

“SHITE! SHITE! SHITE!” Fowl cursed as he watched the brown tree trunks around them filled with over twenty apes, all coming at them with a speed that seemed impossible from above.

Hand over foot, they scampered down.

“Seth, protect me! I can cast a spell, but it’s going to take a bit! It’s my new area of effect!”

“How long?!”

“Twenty seconds!”

Max did the math in his head and realized that the first group would reach them in about ten seconds.

“Be ready to taunt, Fowl! We need to buy her time!”

Putting his shield in storage, Max counted down the time as the first dozen apes landed on the ground and began to charge.

Fowl was almost pressed against Tanila, and Batrire was beside her. Max was opposite from Fowl, keeping the two women between them.

Max began casting his fire nova when the apes hit the ground.

It’s not going to do enough damage to kill them, but I need to piss them off.

The pack of apes was two yards away when his spell went off. Fire rolled out in a wave around him, igniting fur and flesh.

Loud screeches and wailing, followed by pissed-off roars, came from the apes around him.

“HOLD THAT TAUNT!” Max shouted as they all started to rush right at him.

[ Intimidation ]

Max opened his mouth and roared.

A wave of oppression surged from him, and the apes who were about to pound him with their fists froze. Some turned to flee, their body still smoking and covered in flames, toward the trees the other group of apes were coming from.

Using the moment when more than half of the apes stood there in shock, Max planted his feet and swung his halberd in a wide arc. Two apes were cut down, while a third suffered a massive gash to its side.

A roar from the trees above sounded, seeming to awaken those who were startled and running.

One more ape near Max lost its head from a well-placed slash before the rest of the apes rushed towards them as one.

Twenty-seven apes came at them, some nearly upon Max as they had been closer, swinging their fists since not a single one carried a weapon.

He blocked and parried two hits while receiving a fist to his side.

“Now!” Max shouted, wincing at the strike that had landed.

The effect of Fowl’s taunt was evident the moment it went off. Every single ape’s hate-filled red eyes turned to look at the dwarf in his plate armor, then rushed him.

The dwarf had stepped forward, leaving Tanila a few yards behind as he did it.

A pile of apes jumped onto him, pounding with their fists. The sounds of flesh against metal filled the clearing as the first apes assaulted the dwarf.

Max cut down a few as they ran past him, keeping time in his head.

Three…. Two…. one…

The last few seconds seemed to last forever as a pile of bodies tried to flatten Fowl under their weight, each ape trying to tear the dwarf apart.

Tanila’s spell went off, and the fire that came from her made Max’s fire nova look like a candle compared to a bonfire.

Waves of heat came rolling out three times with flames that washed over the forest floor. They reached past the first row of trees and almost to the second, turning every ape within the spell's range into ash by the second wave of fire.

She was panting, leaning against her staff, while Batrire tossed Fowl a heal.

“Gods, what was that?” Fowl asked.

“New spell,” Tanila replied, after taking a deep breath. “It’s a big mana drain but… it’s strong.”

Max ignored the discussion, looking around to see if more apes were coming. All around them, the ground was smoking, and a few bits of foliage were gone, along with the bodies of all the creatures Tanila had just killed. Even the trunks of the trees were smoking, none having caught fully on fire as they weren’t dry or dying but simply burnt and covered with black soot.

“Where’s the boss?” Fowl asked, glancing towards the treetops.

Max didn’t hesitate, picking up Batrire and Tanila as he sprinted toward the edge of the clearing.

A huge branch came flying at them from above, slamming into the ground where both women had just been.

Fowl was sent tumbling face-first into the dirt as the smaller branches on the huge piece of wood the boss had thrown smacked into him.

“Now what?” Tanila asked as Max kept the two of them on his shoulders, his eyes trained up on the treetops.

“I’m not sure!” Max replied, running again as another huge tree limb fell in their direction.

Zigzagging around the trees as he ran, Max found himself boxed in by the incoming barrage of foliage the boss was sending down.

“Its blocking us in!” Tanila shouted after about the twentieth piece slammed into the ground near the base of the trunks.

Max saw Tanila was right. The boss had gladly followed them in their movements, sending down three and four foot wide branches that were enclosing the outer edge of the tree line.

“What do we do?!” Max asked as he raced toward an opening near him.

Two huge limbs came at them at once, one landing further into the trees and another behind them.

“Fowl?” Batrire called out, trying to ignore the jostling Max was putting her through as he continued to run, carrying her and Tanila.

“I’m fine! It doesn’t want me!”

“We can’t stay here!” Tanila shouted over the sounds of the tree limbs crashing down around them. “Can we get out?”

“No!” Max replied, pushing off of a tree with his leg to change direction as he moved back into the inner ring of the clearing where the boss had started. “It could toss branches from the trees at us even if we were near the entrance. We need to figure something out so it comes down and fights on our terms.”

Tanila looked at the clearing they were in and realized they were quickly running out of time. Only a few sections of trees didn’t have a branch blocking them, and in less than a minute, she doubted any opening would exist.

“The boss is boxing us in… it will probably attack us once it does.”

Max felt his blood turn cold as he surveyed the clearing. One limb lay in the middle, and with the blockade, the boss had already created, the space they had to work with was twenty yards at best.

“It’s creating a killing box…”