Chapter 29: Mini-Boss 3?

The three-day journey passed in an uneventful blur, but the party were once again face to fact with the edge of a void. But for the first time they were ready to challenge one without taking the time to prepare in a town or city, with the coachman departing to drop is daughter off. The party breached the barrier of the void even before they had all made it inside, those in first were being swarmed by a cast of void crabs. Fighting off the larger than usual crustations took a while thanks to the cast’s large numbers but the party were able to finally enter into the void and begin making progress on making it into the center where they assumed the void boss would be waiting for them. The party were making slow progress towards that center as waves of cast’s were attacking the party, wearing those on the frontlines down already due to the crab’s smaller size than anything they’ve had to fight before. Soon enough the party had had enough of the crabs and Lekly and Suieol created long pillars out of the ground to block off any attack from the flank and once everyone was inside the manmade valley, they sealed the back meaning they only had to worry about something coming in from the front. It was now that the second void animal made itself known to the party with the protection of the pillars it also opened up the ground allowing the flowers that were sprouting to become accessible to the bees that were also calling this void home, at first the bees seemed to just ignore the party and let them go about their way. But as one flew a bit to close to the face of Lekly and as she swatted it away, she accidentally hit the bee, which immediately caught the attention of that bee along with all the other bees within the created valley which went from being a place safe from having to fight into a more dangerous place than before. Taking off away from the bees the Lekly and Suieol stopped creating the pillars on either side of the party giving them room to disperse but very soon found themselves surrounded by crabs once again, and so to solve the problem to an extent Lexa hovered up high and began to cast the waterfall spell she picked up right on top of the rest of her party hoping that the falling water would disperse outward pushing the crabs and bees away from the party allowing them to escape somewhere else within the void before the crabs were able to swim back to the party and the bees were able to continue flying beyond the curtain of water that was about to shield the party. Lexa’s attempt to create a brief respite were successful but the party still had no clue where the void boss was or what creature it would take after, but fairly soon after they would get their answer as the crabs seemed to pull away and form together like some pocket monster and from the sky the sound and then sight of the queen bee was made apparent to the party.

“Well, I guess those are the void bosses. I suspect that one invaded this void after being driven out of another.”
“Yep, my money is on the crabs and seagulls having swapped places or something like that. But I’m not all that concerned about where they came from but the pair of void bosses that are waiting for Lexa to turn the water off or run out of mana.”
“They’ll be waiting a long time for me to run out of mana, but I suggest you think of something before they try to do something.”
“Alright, alright. Well Lexa, turn the water off when I say. I’ll prepare a fire spell that should keep the bees back and leave us with just the crab to deal with.”

Moments later Aromi gave Lexa the signal and he unleashed a wall of fire separating the bees and now giant crab, isolating the party inside the wall with the void boss crab.

“Ok now there’s one of them for now. But how exactly are we to kill it?”
“Same way we always do, blunt force and highly potent magic attack.”
“Yeah, business as usual then. Right come on Ami, guess we’re having crab tonight.”

Arano and Ami take off towards the crab as it scuttles towards the rest of the party much faster than anything the size that it is has any right to do. The frontliners blades bounce off the shell that protects the legs of the crab after the first swing, but it does cause the shell to crack open slightly. Hearing the creation of a weak point the pair of frontliners swivel around and immediately begin following under the crab hacking at the shell around the initial crack. Seeing this both Lekly and Suieol create their own weapons through their alchemy and begin to assist the frontliners, Ilev casting a strength buff upon them to aid their hacking and slashing. With the frontliners all busy Lexa picks up Aromi and begins to hover higher off the ground, as there’s still the other issue to take care of. Landing just outside the fire wall the pair of spell casters make their way to the most recent location they saw the queen bee hoping that they might be able to reason with the monster as often bees are neutral to players at worse in games. With the now four frontliners each hacking away at a leg of the giant crab they make it through the hard shell and easily slice through the flesh of the monster, with four of its ten legs cut away the giant grab monster collapses to the ground and the party begin attacking the outer shell on the back to make an opening to kill the monster. A while later they manage to fell the monster, and much to Arano’s despair the crab like all of the other void bosses disintegrates and leaves behind only it’s void core. The other side of the fire wall Lexa and Aromi approach the queen bee with a as much caution as they possibly can once in range Lexa begins to cast, in very quick succession so they don’t get attacked, the multitude of healing spells needed to reduce or remove void corruption from living beings. With the spells completed the queen bee and the rest of the hive just fly away out of the void, leaving Lexa to put out the fire wall and everyone regrouping and making their way out of the void back to where the road where the coachman might be able to find them whenever he returns.