The seasoned Battlemage Gael stood bracing against his aged Overlarge Enchanted Melee Club. He shifted his weight and turned slowly, befitting his age.

  “Aye, laddie.” Gael nodded towards Calaf. “No longer so good with faces but I recognize your Interface well enough.”

  “Hello, Gael.” Calaf gave a knowing nod in turn.

  As he’d done many times over the past year, Calaf thought back, cross referencing his old acquaintances against his new party. Reasonably sure that Gael had never encountered Jelena or Enkidu, and never heard of Zilara’s status as the holy child, Calaf relaxed his guard.

  “Know this guy?” Jelena asked.

  Calaf and Gael last met at the Battletower the previous summer. They’d been part of the same party during the first tango with Honest John and the cultivators he’d gulled into rebellion. He was an excellent mage and melee fighter.

  “I vouch for him,” Calaf said.

  “The guys downstairs said that there’d been one other party they lost contact with earlier,” Zilra said.

  Gael nodded. “True. The others seldom know how to deal with the levers. There’s, what, ten of you? That’s better than usual. Speaking of levers…”

  With all four levers activated near the tower, the traps and illusions further down the tower were deactivated. On the roof, however, slits in the floor opened up. From out of the nearest slit came another burlap-amalgamation of various dire-beast anatomy appeared.

  A beefy level 82. The strongest enemy yet faced. Still, it was an artificial creature of stuffing and burlap, enchanted into movement by some combination of magery and natural philosophy.

  Zilara let loose a fireball from the hip. Normally, burlap would burn to cinders. But the welt of fire frayed a pile of ‘fur’ and snuffed itself out.

  “Guess the status rings true,” Zilara said with some small measure of embarrassment.

  While they had yet to encounter a ‘Phase Mode,’ the second half of the status proved illuminating. Much like the chimeras below, it would have certain resistances.

  There were four journeyman mages, a seasoned Battlemage, and junior spell-spamming multi-classer, some four tank types, including Calaf, and two clerics in the church contingent. an unclassed but agile relic thief, and Enkidu in a class all his own. There was no shortage of varied attack styles. Zilara threw a bolt of lightning at the creature and shaved off a dozen hit points.

  “Use any attack other than fire,” Calaf said.

  “Aye, caught on fast,” said Gael, winding up a swing from his spiked club.

  A barrage of lightning, weaponized ice pillars, and the odd bauble of holy water flew at the beast. A curtain of smoke kicked up by the barrage covered the roof. The chimera rose on piecemeal wings, its health about halfway down.

  The various parties spread out over the tower roof.

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  “It’s staggering. Keep up the pressure,” Gael said.

  A crimson mage turned with twin lightning spells in each hand. Before he could launch them, a pair of jaws snapped up vertically. The roof shook, and a second Chimera appeared.

  “We’re down a spellcaster,” someone said.

  “Focus magic on that one,” Calaf said. “Zilara, Enkidu, let’s focus on finishing the flying one.”

  The Squire held his kite shield to block a blow from the chimera’s wings. Just one attack sent him reeling, boots sliding along the smooth stone. He would have fallen clear off the Battletower if Jelena hadn’t grabbed him by the gorget and pulled him back onto the platform. Enkidu jumped up to slice at the flying chimera in mid-air, preventing a follow-up attack.

  The battle continued. The church team focused on tanking the scaly chimera while the remaining crimson mages pelted it with fireballs. Gael, meanwhile, held back.

  A rumbling underfoot heralded a third chimera.

  “Every minute on the dot,” Zilara said.

  “They’re on a timer?” Calaf asked, rolling under another wing-swipe.

  Gael and the church knights disengaged to preoccupy this beast. The crimson mages were frying the physically resistant beast with fireballs. Calaf’s party had nearly taken out the first creature, having whittled it down to thirty percent hp.

  “Just a bit more…” Calaf braced to rush forward with his spear. Another lightning bolt coupled with a slash from Enkidu and a spear thrust, ought to finish the creature off.

  Calaf thrust the spear into stuffing and burlap. He dodged back as Enkidu leaped in to slice and widen the wound. The bolt left just a sliver of HP.

  Another rumble underfoot. Calaf looked down. He was standing in the fourth quarter of the arena. Right where a new creature was set to appear…

  A whiplike tail emerged from a panel on the ground. Too late, Calaf held his shield out and just managed to brace against a snapping dire-crocodile jaw rising up to consume him. The opposite ‘back’ end of the chimera’s jaw embedded itself into the tempered metal of Calaf’s shoulder pauldrons.

  There wasn’t enough space under the floor to hold such a creature; the portal room had only a thin roof, maybe twice the average man’s height. Perhaps judicious application of portal magic summoned these chimeras from elsewhere, or perhaps the artificial dire-beasts were created through some alchemical process on the spot. Whatever the logic underlying this four-tier boss battle, the final creature now had Calaf in its mouth.

  The Interface could not be read from this precarious position.

  “Which status does this one have?” Calaf cried from within the creature’s jaws.

  “Piercing resistant!” said a voice, probably Zilara.

  “Hit it with anything else,” Calaf said, then. “Other than fire or lightning!”

  It wouldn’t do to be cooked or shocked within this animated burlap jaw.

  At least this monster did not have wings. This was of little solace as the beast started shaking its dire-reptilian jaw once it was clear its meal would not be swallowed so easily. The Squire shimmied his way deeper into the massive jaw. While paradoxical, venturing further into the chimera’s mouth would at least make it harder for the beast to fling Calaf off the tower’s edge!

  “Surely there can’t be any more,” Zilara said. “What’s going to happen in another minute?”

  They would find out soon enough. Its efforts to swallow or dislodge Calaf thwarted, the chimera opted to half-spit, half-push Calaf out with a textile ‘tongue.’

  Calaf was free, on the floor. He stabbed at the beast on instinct for minimal damage given its piercing resistance. Still, he was uneaten and back in the fight.

  The first chimera was down to a sliver of hit points. The anti-lightning and anti-blade creatures were being slowly whittled down in their own time. While Calaf couldn’t harm the anti-piercing enchanted chimera, he could block its blows and make the battle more manageable.

  Another chime signaled that a minute had passed. By the Menu, only five minutes had passed! A bolt of lightning flew for the gravely injured chimera, aiming to finish it off. Only, the lightning fizzled on contact. Now, the first chimera’s Interface said thus:

  “They’ve swapped their resistances out!” Zilara said with an annoyed pout.

  “Find the target that your skills are most effective against and keep fighting!” Gael bellowed.

  The aged Battlemage brought his mighty war mallet down on the now-grounded chimera. Magically animated fabric and rubber sinews deflated in an instant.

  More lightning flew from Zilara’s hands. These, too, fizzled out as they hit the remaining trio of beasts. Examining the Interface was hardly necessary to determine what happened: the defeated chimera’s resistance had spread to the remaining foes.

  Lightning out, Zilara took to spamming fireballs at the two non-flame resistant beasts. The resistances swapped once more, but they slowly whittled down a second beast. The piercing-resistant chimera died next, and suddenly Calaf’s spear was stultified. Gael, Enkidu, and most Church Paladins were using swords, so it was an acceptable trade.

  Two targets swapping between three resistances proved more manageable. By the time the third creature died, the final beast was only down to half health. It inherited all four resistances, turning all damage into scratch damage. Even Enkidu’s mighty sword swipes did no more than one or two points of damage.

  “What’s the point of being off the Interface if I’m still limited by its status effects!?” Enkidu’s cry betrayed a rare lapse in stoicism.

  One type of damage was not covered by the bevy of resistance boosts. Gael enchanted his war mallet with icicle spikes and brought it down on the beast’s head. Before it could recover, he brought the hammer down again. Soon, every cleric and mage across multiple parties was buffing their one companion that could actually hurt the beast. Enkidu kept stabbing at the chimera’s limbs for minimal but consistent damage.

  It was a slow and arduous process, but in time the final chimera, too, collapsed. Its false facsimile of life deflated like all the others.