The Return

-Paladin Abilities Rewarded-

I'm back, standing in the pitch black boss room. The lightstones left on the floor are still faintly giving off a small glow, enough for me to see what’s happening.
The boss that we had previously thought to be defeated is standing, hunched over, its long spindly limbs are slowly pulling something towards its head.
It unhinges its jaw, the rows of teeth reflecting the faint light, as it slowly brings Retainer’s head up.
Not likely.
“Shield Lunge!”
It reacts quickly to my dash, dropping Retainer and slamming one of its other limbs into my shield. But this is exactly what I wanted.
“Shield Meld.” I quickly fuse my shield to its arm and plant my feet.
The boss tries to pull away, but I’m stuck hard to it, and it quickly realises this.
Instead of pulling, it swaps tactics, suddenly swinging its arm up in the air, taking me with it.
“I only did this once in game, but let me show you a technique that got over half a million views.” I yell at it.
We lock eyes as its swing reaches directly above it, my shield now pointing straight down upon it.
“Holy Rebuke!”
Normally a knockback counter, but since its limb is attached to my shield, it counts as a continuous attack and this counter has nowhere for the knockback to go, aside from.
There’s a sickening crunch as the counter force slams the boss into the ground, ripping its limb from my shield, and crushing it against the cracking floor.
“That’s not all.” I ready my sword as I fall. “Searing Smite!”
For a brief moment, my sword envelops itself in flame before I bury it deep in the head of the boss.

I don’t even bother retrieving my sword before I start running towards where Retainer lies.
She’s cold, but alive.
“It’s all my fault, all my fault.” She keeps muttering the same few words, still trapped in whatever nightmare she was put in.
“Spirit Disruption!” I place my hand on her forehead and cast the counterspell again.
Sitting back, I rest her head on my lap as I watch the darkness covering the room slowly retreat. This time the boss isn’t coming back.
“Hmmm, where?” Retainer groans as her eyes flutter open.
“Don’t push yourself, just take your time.” I gently rest my hand on her forehead.
“What happened?” She asks after a few moments of silence.
“It’s called a Night Lurker. They send their targets into a dream, then slowly drain the life from them after consuming them.”
“A dream? So that was just a dream?” She slowly sits up. ”And it was going to eat us?”
“Almost did eat you. Was this close.” I open my mouth and slowly bring it towards her head.
She pushes my head away and stands, looking over the dead boss.
“Did you do this? I thought you said you couldn’t fight well.”
“After I escaped my dream, it unlocked my actual Paladin skills. So I’m not just a wall in a fight now.”
“You escaped on your own?” She pokes my sword, still impaled in the boss.
“Yeah, I figured out the world wasn’t real, and counterspelled it from the inside.”
She looks like she wants to ask more, but she just nods instead and crouches by the boss, doing her second round of looting, this time with a lit up room, and a actually dead boss.

“Ahhh.” I loudly sigh. “Never thought I would be so glad to be back here.”
I collapse face first onto one of the Lobby couches, and hear Retainer follow suit on the one next to me.
The exit door from the boss room teleported us out back in here. I know it’s the one we started in because the timer to summon a Guardian is stuck at zero, meaning we are in no rush to leave since there is no danger.
“Is that something… you find comfortable, Paladin?”
Tilting my head I see the Merchant standing next to my couch.
“Yeah, you should give it a try sometime.” Retainer grunts in agreement next to us.
“I’ll give it a pass… thank you.”
I decide to stop messing with him and sit up. I always find it hard to believe that this skinny pile of bones that talks weird has no issues going anywhere in the tower, and is viewed as one of the greatest NPCs.
“So, you’re free now. What’s next for you?” I’m genuinely curious because it never gets mentioned in game what he does between encounters.
“I’ll wander, find some more stuff to trade.” He takes a long deep breath. “And don’t worry, I remember the debt I owe you, it will be paid.”
He places a small bag on the couch next to me then, without another word, he turns and walks into the teleport door leading to the first floor boss.
“He’s really weird.” Retainer finally speaks up. “But nice.”
“Yeah, he kinda is.”

The bag the Merchant left for us is full, but it only had two things in it.
The first is an unholy amount of holy water vials. Like I could exercise the Demon King himself with this amount.
Secondly, and something I’m currently in the process of installing on my sword, is a Holy Overload Stone.
Overload Stones are items that can be installed into weapons, which when channeled with magic of the same type, allows the user to use Final Class level spells and abilities. It also just passively increases power for the user as well.
“Aww, I wanted some new stuff as well.” Retainer whines.
“You just got a new class, new cloak, new weapons. And you still want more?”
She looks over herself, then back to me.
“Oh yeah, I kinda forgot that.”
I shake my head and pass her the bag of holy water. While she stores it away I start the slow process of trying to figure out where on my sword this damn Overload Stone goes.
“So, after you put that rock in, what are we going to do?” Retainer asks as I fiddle with the hilt of my sword.
“We need to keep climbing,” I say bluntly. “So we’ll continue from where we left off. The first floor boss is already defeated, so that’s not a problem, and even if we run into Lancer and Ka’el, we should be able to hold our own now.”
“I would rather not see those two ever again.”
“Me too kid, me too.”

After a few minutes of fumbling, I finally get the Overload Stone attached to my sword.
“What a stupid place to put it.” I mumble as we approach the door.
“If only someone told you to try that stupid place at the start, then maybe we would already be on the next floor.”
“I didn’t try it because it was stupid. Now come on, be alert. We don’t know if anything is different from when we last left the room, so normal setup, I’ll go first, you follow in five seconds.”
I ready my sword and shield as Retainer readies her daggers.
“I’m ready, lead the way.”
“Okay then, Floor one Boss Room, attempt number two. Begin.”