Book 3: Chapter 55: Patch 10.0: A Growing Crew

Rather than worry about the rest of the players, the boss notices the one preparing a spell against him and sends all of his remaining tentacles toward her! Two of the tentacles grab as many coffins as they can to toss directly at her as well, the bodies within already reanimated and ready to attack as soon as they are free.

Cassiel cuts away several of the tentacles. Fenrir tackles one of the coffins out of the air, and Oleander uses magically-enhanced vines to grab the remaining coffins before they have a chance to hit Azalabulia.

None of them know for sure what’s going to happen when Azalabulia is done chanting her spell. But, with how awesome and huge that fiery, draconic head above her is starting to look, they’re sure it’s going to be good.

Smoke drifts out from the dragon’s mouth as it opens its maw to roar at the boss. The scleras of its eyes are pitch black with red irises and raging flames as pupils.

“Heed your master’s call, Bahamut! Wrap mine enemies in your accursed flame; rend apart reality itself with diabolic energies!” Azalabulia shouts, her voice growing louder and more maniacal with every line of her chant.

Meanwhile, standing at the back of the room doing absolutely nothing is Rao. “Damn. She makes me want to cringe, but this is kind of cool. I can see why people do the whole roleplaying thing now,” he says, arms crossed over his chest and nodding in approval.

“Let this be my final act of life! Let this be your final strike of battle! Bahamut, let us merge our souls and show the world that there are none whom could ever stand before us and live to speak of it! Cursed Flame of Bahamut, Final Attack: Exodus of Reality, the Purging of Life. Fire!”

The draconic head that was floating above her has turned into a mighty, flaming dragon staying afloat in the air with its wings. Most of its body is composed of black flames while the fires that come off of it are red and scorch whatever their embers land on.

Knowing its time is limited, the boss frantically tries to escape up the wall toward the entrance it came from, but Rock and Shogun holding onto its tentacles refuse to let it go – they refuse to lose the game of tug of war.

Azalabulia’s dragon spreads its wings and opens its maw. A core of fire and energy forms in front of its mouth that grows larger and more violent by the second until it explodes with a horrifying fury, hundreds of brilliant rays shooting out from it all over the room and exploding wherever they impact.

The boss cries out in fear and agony, but it just sounds like guttural gurgling as explosive rays of fiery magic detonate all over its body.

A veil of smoke hides the monster, but it proves that it’s still alive by shooting two more tentacles out through the smoke toward Azalabulia.

Unfortunately for the monster, her attack isn’t over yet.

With a ferocious roar, the dragon flies through the smoke, crashes into the boss, and explodes. The explosion’s shockwave is enough to knock everybody in the room down except for Azalabulia whom was expecting it and has braced for it.

Fenrir looks around to check on everybody. Everybody looks alright, and Rock is dragging a limp tentacle away from the smoke.

She won her game of tug of war.

The smoke dissipates and gives view to the remains of the boss. Purple goo, scorched tentacles, and a body blasted into several chunks is all that is left of it.

Everybody looks over at Azalabulia with impressed eyes.

Azalabulia stands there with a smug smile as she twirls her staff around before securing it on her back.

Unfortunately, her cool victory pose is ruined when she misses the holder for her staff and instead drops it onto the ground.

That doesn’t stop her from her confidently crossing her arms over her chest and pretending that didn’t just happen, though.

“Hey, bro, why do you look so disappointed?” Rao asks Oleander.

“This… this total nerd’s magic is so much better than mine. Should… should I start saying cheesy things before my spells?” Oleander asks, his ego completely deflated for once.

Rock picks up on Oleander’s self-disappointment, drags her won tentacle over to him and drops it on his feet before looking up at him and barking.

Shogun does the same with the tentacle that he got, dropping it onto Rao’s feet.

“Dude, what am I supposed to do with this?” Rao asks Shogun.

“Thanks, Rock,” Oleander says, petting Rock’s head.

Shogun, annoyed by his master’s response, sits in front of Oleander instead to get pets from him with Rock.

“Alright. I’ll admit that was awesome and worth you taking like an entire minute to chant it,” Fenrir says to Azalabulia.

“Heh. You have now witnessed my true power! You should consider yourself lucky for surviving that, mortal. Had I used my ultimate power, you would have been blasted away alongside all other life within this continent! My true ultimate unlocked power could even destroy this entire star,” Azalabulia declares.

“Sure, sure. I wonder if we’ve got any loot now,” Fenrir says, turning his back to her to look over the boss’s remains.

“There’s a chest over here,” Cassiel says, pointing at a new hole in the wall.

The party walks over to investigate it.

With tentacles and skulls all over the chest, Fenrir opens its lid and gets met with… a conflicting sight. Sure, it looks like epic loot worthy of being the reward for killing a dungeon’s final boss, but it’s just… weird looking as well.

One of the items is a tome with a skull on it and tentacles slithering out from its pages. Another item is what looks like a robe with skulls on its shoulders and dozens of eyes sewn into the sleeves similar to how the boss had eyes all over its body. There is also what looks to be some crafting materials based off of the boss and the dungeon’s inhabitants, and then a single tentacle with an eyeball at the base of it that is wiggling around and looking up at the party.

“Wow, a mini. These are pretty rare,” Cassiel says, looking down at the wiggling tentacle.

“A mini?” Fenrir asks.

“Pets that follow you around, but they’re purely cosmetic. They also stay with you even if you die or get reset. There’s a low chance of getting them from bosses, and some can be crafted,” Cassiel explains.

“It’s so cute!” Azalabulia says, borderline squealing as she picks the miniature tentacle up and cuddles it against her face.

“Don’t you start thinking anything weird,” Cassiel whispers to Fenrir when she sees him watching her nuzzle the tentacle.

“But I don’t have anywhere to put you, and I don’t want you accidentally getting stepped on… aha! I know!” Azalabulia says, sticking the miniature tentacle down into her cleavage with only the tip of it poking out.

“Don’t you think anything weird,” Fenrir whispers back to Cassiel.

“I’ll also take this,” Azalabulia says, picking up the tome and strapping it to her side.

“I’ll take this then,” Oleander says and grabs the robe, slipping it on over his current garb. It shrinks in size to fit his body as soon as it’s on.

“Hey, Rao, you like crafting and all that, right?” Fenrir asks Rao.

“Yeah. Why?” Rao asks.

“Do you think it’d be possible to build a tentacle into my fishing rod?”

“I don’t see why not, bro. You’d just have to find somebody good enough to do it.”

“Well, I guess I’ll take this then,” Fenrir says, picking up a curled-up, lifeless tentacle and sticking it inside of his bag.

“I’ll grab the rest then.”

“How’re you going to carry it?”

Rao smirks. “I’ve got some tricks up my sleeves, too! Just you watch, bro.” He places his hands on the chest and says, “Portable mode.”

The chest shrinks down to the size of a peanut, allowing Rao to pick it up with ease and place it inside of one of his pockets.

Everybody but Azalabulia looks at him. She’s too busy playing with the tip of the tentacle wiggling around at the top of her cleavage.

“You… can do that?” Oleander asks.

“Yeah! Building places on my own is difficult, so I had this one dude teach me how to easily move materials by myself. He taught me how to shrink chests and other containers, so anything that I can put inside of a chest, I can move it around by shrinking the chest which shrinks the stuff inside until I make the chest big again. Makes it super easy to move lots of materials at once,” Rao explains.

Oleander pulls on Fenrir’s vest to lean up and whisper into his ear, “I’m starting to think this guy might be pretty useful.”