The First Fight

It’s a strange sensation, almost like walking through jelly, but it lasts for just for a moment before it fades and I’m standing at the edge of a large dim room.
I hear the sound of my party members' feet hitting the ground behind me as they come through as well.
“Well this was anticlimactic," Lancer quips as he walks up next to me..
“Gods, what were we even worried about?” Ka’el laughs as he and Lancer keep walking past me.
“W-why is the room empty?” Ranger asked, Priestess banged her staff in agreement.
Round room. Dim from the start. Torches two, no, three slots apart. Blue flames.
“Uh, Paladin?” Ranger goes to say something else, but Priestess stops him, shushing him.
Think, you’ve beaten the game countless times, what first floor boss has a room layout like this, and isn’t even present?
Oh no.

“Both of you get back here now!” I yell towards the brothers.
But it’s too late.
I react purely on instinct, shoving Priestess back as hard as I can and bringing up my shield with my other arm.
The impact sends a shockwave through my entire arm and even pushes me back a little.
Before I can even think of responding the force on my shield releases with a loud hiss and I sense whatever hit me scamper away.
By this point both Lancer and Ka’el are running back to us, weapons ready.
“Ranger, help her up.”
The boy nods and moves to help up Priestess who was still on the floor from where I shoved her.
“First boss is a Wraith Knight.Once she’s up, we’ll all move to a single torch, they’re invisible in dim areas.”
My arm is slightly shaking from the impact it just took. Even with a shield it still hurt like hell.
But, now that we know what it is, this should be easy.
“So, we just stand by a torch until it shows up again? Easy mode.” Lancer finally rejoins us.
“Move as a group, they always try to take out the healer and ranged DPS first.”
We slowly edge our way towards the nearest wall, Lancer and Ka’el have taken up positions on the other side of Ranger and Priestess, we form a triangle of safety until we hit the wall.
“S-so, now what do we do?” Ranger knocks an arrow as fast as his shaking hands will let him.
“We wait until it shows again, then we kill it. It’s pretty simple.” Lancer states with obvious impatience.
I give a quick look back at Priestess as I move more to block her. She gives me a nod, while holding her staff, more ready to block than cast.

Minutes pass. And the only thing that’s happening is the tension rising in all of us.
“Where the hell is it?” Ka’el yells, frantically looking around.
Lancer and Ranger aren’t doing any better, but at least they’re staying quiet.
“We can’t just stand here, we’re already cutting our time close.” Lancer quietly states.
He’s right. We have to end this soon or we’ll also have a Guardian to deal with as well.
“Are you sure it was a Wraith Knight?”
“One hundred percent. This room, it’s attack pattern, the fact it’s invisible. Everything points to Wraith Knight.”
“Well then why isn’t it attacking again?”
Lancer’s question catches me off guard. It’s a simple enough question, but in the game, it never happened. Wraith Knights would always attack, retreat, attack, retreat. Then once you were in the light they would go for a frontal assault which made them easy to finish off. Their strength lies in the stealth attacks it got off before you made it to the torches.
But this isn’t a game anymore. This is a real world, which means that enemies might act differently to what we are used to.
“What if it’s not attacking because it knows we’ll be able to see it?” I voice my thoughts.
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Lancer stutters.
“Doesn’t it? Who would willingly walk into a situation that they know would put them at such a deadly disadvantage? We’ve been too focused on this being the game we know, we need to think more about it being a real world.”
“T-then what are we going to do?” Ranger asks.
“We just need to adjust how we use our game knowledge.”
“Look man, I’ll take any plan as opposed to just standing here waiting for a Guardian.” Lancer adds.

Standing in the middle of the room, it finally dawns on me that this really is a dumb plan. Not only am I putting myself in danger, Priestess is also standing right next to me, meaning she’s risking her life as well.
But, if the Wraith Knight won’t come to us, we’ll just have to meet it halfway.
I look back to the wall where the other three still stand. Ranger has an arrow knocked, and both Lancer and Ka’el have their spears ready, Lancer ready to run, Ka’el ready to throw.

“I promise I won’t let it hurt you.”
I give Priestess one last reassurance before turning away from her and focusing.
Just like before, I need it to be just like before. Sense it before it strikes, but this time, I need to be ready to follow up.
Now!
I quickly spin around Priestess and raise my shield to block a strike I feel more than I see.
The impact has the same force as the first one, but this time I bring it in more, lessening the blow.
But that’s not all.
“Shield Weld.”
The Wraith Knight tries to pull its weapon away but it’s stuck, hard.
Shield Weld, a low level defense skill. It’s a counter that temporarily attaches an attacker's weapon to the shield, effectively disarming an opponent.
Now that it can’t fight back as well, next is finding it.
“Now Priestess.”
She’s already raising her staff before I finish telling her. Even without the ability to talk, she can still cast simple spells. And all we need right now is one of the most basic magic spells in any game I’ve played.
The sound of the bottom of her staff hitting the ground reverberates cleanly throughout the room.
The ball that forms on the top though, is another story. It sounds just like a firework as she flicks it towards the roof. It makes it about halfway before it flares up and illuminates the area around both of us.
Light. A very simple spell, which is rarely used because, well, it’s pretty bad. But right now, it’s our lifeline.
I finally see it for the first time. Its boney hands still trying to remove the crude mace from my shield, the rusted armour it wears, and the bits of skin still sticking to its skull.
I release the straps holding my shield to my arm and slam it down as hand as I can.
The Wraith Knight goes with it, following its weapon to the ground.
The others need no callout. I barely step back in time before an arrow strikes the Wraith Knight square in the back, then another. Followed by a spear that basically obliterates its right leg. But, before it can put up any semblance of resistance, another spear is thrust through its skull courtesy of Lancer who rushed over.

We all hold our breath, waiting to see if it will get back up or continue the fight.

-Boss Clear-

The words appear in front of my eyes, as well as ring out around the boss room.
“We did it!” Lancer yells, I can hear the elation in his voice.
“I’m so glad.” Ranger starts running over to us.
“That bag of bones wasn’t so scary.” Ka’el actually says that in the game when you defeat the Wraith Knight.
Priestess grabs my shoulders from behind and starts violently shaking me.
I guess we’re all happy that not only did we win, but we didn’t have any casualties or injuries.
“I’m so glad that worked.” I sigh. “Thanks for trusting me guys.”
The soft patter of footsteps interrupt our celebration.
Another enemy?
I turn towards the sound and breathe another sigh of relief.
Retainer is running towards us. She must have come straight through the door as soon as it re-opened.
“See, I told you we’d all be fine.” I bend down to her height as she stops in front of me and give her a pat.
She quickly scribbles something on her notepad then hands it to me.
“I wasn’t worried at all.”
Yeah right. Her eyes are slightly red and puffy, I can tell she’s been crying.
“Sorry it took so long, but really, we’re all fine.”
I give her another pat before standing back up. She smiles at me before heading over to Priestess.
“Let’s not waste anymore time here,” Lancer starts taking charge. “Ka’el and Paladin will help loot the boss, Ranger and Priestess, you two head through the door to the next safe zone.”
“B-but wouldn’t it be better if we all helped loot?” Ranger stammers.
“If a Guardian spawns, it’ll be easier to escape if it’s just us, you two would be easy targets. And Paladins Retainer has extra storage and looting speed, so we won’t take long.”
He’s right, one bonus that Retainer does bring is the extra storage they have, and an increase to looting speed.
“You two go ahead, we’ll be there soon.”
Priestess waves goodbye to Retainer and starts pushing Ranger towards the exit door.
“Alright, let’s get this looted nice and quick.” I retrieve my shield and crouch by the defeated Wraith Knight.