Silence stretches out, before the Lich King roars, swiping at the animated armour, sending it reeling back. In a voice made of wind, and ghosts, and long-dried blood, he bellows, “Intruders! How DARE you invade my realm! Death will not be the end for you… I will raise your bodies from the grave and you will become a part of my Deadguard! And together, we will return to the surface above and restore my kingdom to its former glory! I, Jemistra Raskel the 8^th, so swear it! Now…. DIIIIEEEEE!”

The boss reaches out and a sceptre appears in his other hand. A long, golden staff topped with a coiled wyrm, an orb of blood-red crystal clutched in its foreclaws. He strikes the butt of it against the ground, and a shriek rises from below. Four hatches open in the ground, and a large group of the Deadguard’s soldiery pour forth. Gimmel starts grinning, and his men form up. He roars, “Anvil squad, bring the hammer!”

The strange metal backpacks that he and his dwarves are wearing finally serve whatever purpose they were created for. Each one opens, a telescoping pole clicking out, four blades twisting into position and spinning.

“Helicopter backpacks?!” I gasp, and he cackles, crouching, before he and a dozen stocky, bearded dwarves leap into the air, soaring up, before plunging down, boots-first, to crash into the assembling Deadguard.

Jemistra howls in frustrated rage, and the armour clashes with him again, the pair locking blades once more. Clawdette takes off, peppering the Deadguard she can hit with her repeating crossbow, the recoil causing her to jerk around a little in mid-air. More and more begin pouring out, replacing the falling cyber-zombies almost as quickly as they drop. Gimmel’s men keep rising and crashing back down, axes and hammers being put to great effect

Asteria and, to my surprise, Marika, are casting spells in tandem. Apparently, holding a grudge can wait until AFTER the boss battle. Flame Cascades and Ice Storms explode across the battlefield, while I catch a few glimpses of Randy bringing his sword to bear against some        ACTUAL enemies instead of attacking players. He’s honestly a pretty good fighter, when he puts his mind to it. Too bad his skill at arms is eclipsed by his douchebaggery.

The Andromal, Captain Brandia, and her trio of bodyguards have formed up alongside Harvenhaight, communicating as they get mobbed by a large clutch of undead. I start attempting to get over there to help, before two of the growing horde of trash mobs target me. Drawing my greatsword, I prepare to engage.

My wings beating, I lift up and drop back down, bringing my blade down like a meteor, splitting one of the two Deadguard in half lengthways, before whirling into a spin, cleaving the other in twain at the waist and sending the parts tumbling in different directions. With a mighty boot, I kick a third in the chest, a loud crunching sound rising as its ribcage caves in under my clawed metal boot. With a couple more fearsome blows, I bull my way to the Captain’s side, striking down at one of the Deadguard clawing at her. “Need a hand?”

Captain Kael’Dornis-Galatea and her troops back off a little, one of them, a white band around her arm, administering healing spells to the others, as the Captain chugs a potion down, leaning on the haft of her halberd.

“My thanks, Kettrin. We can handle it from here, get moving!” the Andromal soldier hefts her polearm, and impales one of the oncoming Deadguard, lifting it, and then slamming it down, hard, the axe-head of her weapon cutting into the decrepit flesh with ease. One of her men plunges a longsword into its skull, and it goes still.  Flitting across the battlefield, I take to the air, jinking around one of Gimmel’s Anvil Squad, grinning as the stocky brown-bearded dwarf roars in a berserk frenzy, bellowing as he descends with an ear-splitting crash, burying twin axes in faces and chests.

Asteria uses her Faeflight, joining me as Marika holds her own below. Between casts of big, flashy spells and weaker, more accurate ones, she’s chugging from a bandolier of mana potions, before shouting a warning at a couple of Gimmel’s men, they propeller their way to safety as a wall of icicle spears skewer a dozen of the writhing mass of Deadguard. The dwarves land and begin the process of carving up the incapacitated zombies.

The burliest of the pair nod in approval towards the pink-haired girl as she brushes her forehead with a trailing sleeve. I narrow my eyes, and catch a small grin forming on her flushed face. Huh. Maybe she’s NOT completely irredeemable. Asteria winks, and passes me my old spear. She’s been holding on to it? I thought I’d dumped it back at the camp, but, here it is.

Something is off about it, though. The citrine crystal secured in the helix twist of the spearhead is glowing, almost blindingly bright, and I can feel the whole lance shaking, the power too much to contain. Asteria giggles, “I… may have overcharged that stone with a bit of magic. Now, I’d recommend throwing it at one of those hatches, if you don’t mind?”

I heft the spear, gripping my greatsword in my left hand, as I rear back and hurl my former weapon. It arcs through the air as Marika’s next spell sends a crashing wave of salty-smelling water boiling across the stone flags. With a little aim-assist from Asteria’s wind magic, I watch as the spear plunges through the open hatch, right as the tidal wave starts pouring in. An incredible cloud of steam explodes from the hatch, before Clawdette alights at the steaming vent, her crossbow in one hand, as she pulls something out of her vest pocket. 

Waving it at me, I catch enough of a look to recognize it as one of Gimmel’s newly purchased magic grenades. She thumbs the activation rune and drops it in. A loud tinkling fills the noisy air for a moment, as a pillar of ice erupts from the mouth of the hatchway, almost impaling the Ashiga through the face as she hops back nimbly with a raucous cackle.

 With one hatch out of order, I turn to bisect another Deadguard with the blade of my sword. It needs a name, all great weapons have them. The sword of the king, Excalibur. The legendary spear gae bolg. Durendal, the unbreakable blade. Countless weapons in history have been known by a name, sometimes several. I’ll have to give it some thought.  But not right now, the battle’s still raging.

Whirling on my heel, I decapitate another Deadguard as it bounds towards me, the newly-severed head bouncing and rolling and I stride forwards, wings flaring, to engage the Lich in concert with the animated armour. Cracks are running along the armour’s form now, and, as it raise its sword to block, the blade shatters, and the warped sword of Jemistra plunges through the breastplate, punching out through the back-plate and lodging there. As the Lich King struggles to free his blade, the armour plunges the broken end of its own sword into Jemistra’s back, digging it in. The Lich staggers back, blackened ooze running from his wounds.  “NO! WHAT IS THIS?! HOW DID YOU-?!” he bellows, and the armour collapses to its knees, reaches up, and tugs off its helm.

Inside, a pale, ghostly figure grins up at the reeling lich. In a haunting voice that still carries the authority and weight it had in life, the spirit speaks. “Truly, you have forgotten, haven’t you? I was once the King of Raskel. I... I am you. Your soul, torn out and forced into that urn, all so you could become immortal and plot to take back our kingdom. You discarded me, but I was freed and have been hunting you down. And now… we will be one again! These surface-dwellers are fine people. They deserve to rule, whereas we squandered our chance! Now, we shall die, as we should have all those eons ago!”

The spirit of King Jemistra the 8^th sheds the armour it had inhabited, standing tall and proud, dressed in his royal finery, before drawing his sabre and charging the lich. Every blow the animated corpse-king directed at his soul simply passed through, and the ghostly blade sunk home with a ghastly squelch. Pale chains, wreathed in smoke and mist, erupt from the blade and bind the lich, hand and foot. Raging, the lich shrieks in an unearthly tone, as Clawdette begins firing, expending bolt after bolt, the quarrels slamming home into the undead’s withered body.

Gimmel and his dwarves finish off the current crowd. Two have fallen, their backpacks broken and bent, but they didn’t go quietly, one torn almost in half as he’d triggered the grenade and caused a boulder to form in the shaft, blocking it entirely.

Asteria’s ice scythe sinks in between the lich’s shoulder blades, before Randy charges. Not at the lich, though. While everyone is distracted, he comes right at me, sword out, fouled with thick, oily blood and scraps of rotted flesh. Asteria tries to wrench her weapon free, but it’s too late. The smirk on Randy’s face is psychotic. Harvenhaight dives, but, just as Randy brings his sword around, a cloud of pink smoke billows out of nowhere. As he backs off, a massive form takes shape within the cloud, and I realise my monster egg must be hatching!

As the smoke whirls, two long, wide horns rise up, a hunched body, gleaming eyes piercing the smoke, followed by a loud THUMP-THUMP on the stone floor. My chat is freaking out, and I catch another message from Ulged.

UlgedTheFloofyGnoll: BEHOLD! THE BEAST OF DOOM!

The smoke clears, and, there, before us… is a massive… towering… rabbit. Not a bipedal one, just a really, really big rabbit. As my brain falls out at the cuteness, it turns and wiggles its nose at me. I point and squeal, “Bnuuy!” Randy gawps for a second, and then resumes his attack. A massive foot paw scythes in and catapults him sideways, sending him skidding ass-first across the floor. By the time he regains his feet, the massive rabbit is in front of him, sitting up on its haunches. It swipes a front paw, disarming the stunned Randy. It seems to wiggle its snoot disapprovingly, before placing a paw gently on Randy’s chest. A second later, he convulses, electricity crackling around him like a Faraday cage, before his gyrations launch him a couple metres back, sending him plummeting off the top of the tower. The giant bnuuy turns and hops back over to me, before pushing me onto my butt and flopping its mighty head on my lap.

UlgedTheFloofyGnoll: …… WELL… THAT’S NOT EXACTLY WHAT I WOULD CALL A BEAST OF DOOM, BUT IT STILL COUNTS!

I run a hand over my new monster bunny’s head, feeling the thick, soft fur against my gauntleted hands, and scratch at the base of one enormous ear. It flicks gently, and nuzzles into me. Everyone is staring, ignoring the still-wailing Lich King, as I shrug. “Bnuuy.” I say, as if that explains it. A few minutes pass as everyone takes a turn at kicking the Lich-King while he’s down, and, finally, Asteria helps me dig myself out from under the second floofalanche I’ve ever found myself in, to deliver the fatal blow. Raising my sword, I bring it down on the twitching head of the ancient king of the dead, removing it in one clean slash. The king’s ghost smiles, and bows to us, dissolving into pure, white light, and vanishing, leaving no trace behind. Exp and rewards pour in, as everyone whoops, high-fiving and celebrating our victory. Even Marika gets caught up in the atmosphere of jubilation, dancing awkwardly-but-enthusiastically, spontaneously hugging me, and Asteria, and everyone in range!

I start, and then hug back for a brief second, before she whirls off to do a victory lap, shooting off a few basic flares of magical light to act like fireworks. I catch several Argonauts fussing over my huge bunny-rabbit, even the NPC, Captain Brandia. One of her horns is broken off, and her left arm is bound in a sling, but she seems unfazed. Looks like all three of her men survived, too. Lucky for them, since I don’t think we have any revival spells or anything. She catches my gaze, and winks. “Well done, Kettrin.” She mouths, and I wave back, before snuggling into Asteria’s side. This… was a good adventure.