Throttle glanced behind us, to the closed gate. She shrugged. “Sho?”

  “I guess it doesn’t make much of a difference,” I sighed, pulling Crapsholver from my inventory, swirling it around one hand. So far, I didn’t feel any jitters or vibrations along the handle, so we should be alright—

  Crapshoveler shuddered.

  I clenched the handle, but the blade wouldn’t stop shaking. “That’s not a good sign.”

  Throttle took the dagger out of her mouth, frowning. “Do you hear that?”

  “No—”

  There was a faint hum in the air, followed by an occasional secondary voice, almost like a chorus. Then the chants grew louder, speaking in some unknown language. Latin, perhaps.

  “Is that…music?” I asked.

  “Well, whaddaya know,” Throttle grinned. “Battle music."

  The chorus suddenly cut, and the rocky floor trembled, loose stones ripping from ground, into the air up into the sky. Thousands of rocks cluster around, in a formation far larger than a boulder, before compressing, further and further—to the size of a beach ball—then a basketball—then into a single flawless shell of smooth stone.

  I squinted.

  The shell rippled, twisting outward, like origami, folding around and back across itself, then inward, falling around the edges in all manner of geometric shapes defying explanation and insulting any natural laws.

  A name plate flicked into existence, turning deep red.

  Then it caught on fire.

  I winced. “That’s not a good sign.”

  ~First GateKeeper~

  {Palace Butler : Heraldess VI}

  [Boss : First Degree]

  “Palace?” Throttle read the screen again. “Then their Dungeon Core is probably the ‘king,’ whoever that is.” She stuck the dagger back into her mouth, summoning two jagged swords in either hand. “Maksh tish shimshle.”

  The form shuddered, sprouting lines of black fabric. Each line pulled on rock, unfurling the mound, from the size of a basketball, into the loose outline of a full grown woman—without eyes, mouth or ears. By the time the stone had fully unfurled, her fabric had morphed into a full suit, complete with a white vest and black tie.

  [Hello]

  A grayish notification had appeared beside me, twinkling in the light.

  THEY CAN TALK—

  I took a deep breath in. “Hello. It’s nice to meet a friendly face.”

  [Sorry]

  The notification closed, without another word.

  Throttled glanced toward me. "Why're you’re sho pale?”

  “I think we might’ve bit off a little more than we can chew,” I whispered.

  The music in the background started picking up, followed by a wide variety of heavy metal.

  {Heraldess VI : 100 Hp}

  “One undred? Dhat’s it?” Throttle scoffed. "Pieshe of cake.” She spat the dagger into the air, then belted it with the end of one sword.

  [SpitFire II : Spitting attacks travel three times faster. Does not increase damage]

  The Heraldess vanished in a puff of dust, dagger cutting through empty air.

  She reappeared in the center of the courtyard, a stack of smooth stones in hand..

  The two-star core had used something similar to move, but her ability was unfathomably faster. Chances are, it was full blown teleportation.

  She chose a random set of stones, before settling on one and tossing it toward us.

  Throttle and I braced for impact.

  The stone knocked against the ground, bouncing once, before settling harmlessly on the ground.

  I cracked one eye open. “Is that it?”

  Throttle charged.

  The Heraldess made a strange, almost disappointed clicking sound, picking a different stone from her hand, and smacking it against the gravel floor. One contact, the stone exploded.

  Throttle staggered back, covering her face with one arm.

  {Throttle : (-50) 20 Hp}

  The light died down, replaced by the low simmering of fire, spread through the trees and shrubs. Throttle gritted her teeth, patting down the flames covering her arm. “Grind? Mind helping out?”

  I tossed her my last health potion. “What was that?”

  She popped the cork and drained the bottle, keeping her eyes on the boss. “Random attacks? That or the monster’s just incompetent.”

  {Throttle : (+50) 70 Hp}

  More concerning than the attack itself was the damage it dealt. This Boss could kill Throttle in two hits.

  The Heraldess dropped another stone, this one with a large purple crystal in its center.

  There was a puff of dust, and she was gone.

  “See?” Throttle asked. “Teleportation, explosions, or nothing.”

  “That’s not enough to make her a boss,” I muttered. “And not compared to the gargoyles we bought earlier.” A frown crinkled my brow. “Something’s not right. Why is there a boss in the second room?”

  Throttle shrugged. “It’s a big second room.”

  “But we haven’t even gotten any loot yet,” I groaned. “That’s supposed to make the boss fights more manageable. Or at the very least, we should've gotten some kind of instruction on how to beat her.”

  The air hissed, then popped, and the Heraldess appeared between the two of us, two pebbles in hand.

  “THROTTLE!---” I screamed.

  They clicked against the ground, flashing.

  [(-50) 186Hp]

  White fire burst to life across my hands, arm, and feet.

  Throttle blinked, glanced down at the ground around her. “Ice?”

  A spiral of cold crystal had wrapped around her boots and up her legs, locking her in place.

  “I got hit with fire,” I grumbled patting flames down.

  “So you’re a mage, is that it?” Throttle asked. She rammed a dagger into the ice, and the formation splintered into a million pieces. “Not much of a boss.”

  The notification shimmered.

  [I exist merely to be learned from]

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The monster opened her hand, popping more pebbles loose from her palm. There were four in total. She tossed them up and down, before eventually deciding on one, and dropping that.

  There were four in total. Teleportation, fire, ice, and nothing.

  I grabbed Throttle, jumping back, dodging an explosion. The Heraldess dropped another, appearing beside us—pressing a stone against my face.

  Burning ice exploded from the rock, burning against my skin. Throttle fell out of my arms, hitting the ground and spinning around.

  The mage flicked her last pebble at Throttle, and she jumped back, bracing for impact.

  The pebble clattered to the ground, harmless.

  “A dud?” Throttle huffed, snapping up toward the Heraldess, though she was already gone.

  “Gah!” I shouted, tearing the plume of ice off my cheek. “This isn’t much of a fight.”

  “She just keeps messing with us, and we keep getting messed with.” Throttle grumbled. “And her attacks are weird."

  “The ice doesn't do anything,” I said, with a frown. “Why wouldn’t she just use the explosives over and over again?”

  Throttle shrugged. “Who cares? We just need to get a couple good hits in, and she’s done for. It’s not the most complicated thing in the world.”

  The ice gleamed in my hand, before dissolving into spent mana.

  This wasn’t right. We were missing something, again.

  I checked my stats.

  {GRIND}

  Level 9

  Rank “Uncommon”

  [ 186 Hp 72 Str—

  “Where’d my strength go?” I snapped, grabbing the notification.

  It blinked, focusing in.

  ~Subtle Debuff~

  [PowerSap X : (50:00)]

  [ 72 Str ]

  “Well, that would explain it,” I sighed. “Throttle. Check your stats.”

  She already had hers up. “That’s not good, is it?”

  {Throttle : Silent Debuff : PowerSap X (50:00)}

  [ 34 Str ]

  “We’ve both gotten hit once,” Throttle said, doing the numbers. “And I’m willing to bet Sap means that the Herald is absorbing the power we’ve lost…so…in the span of a couple minutes she’s gained forty strength.”

  “At least it’s temporary,” I said.

  Throttle snorted. “For fifty minutes? We’ll be dead in ten.”

  The Herald appeared beside a nearby tree, waiting patiently.

  “This is a war of attrition,” I sighed. “Even if we cleared the debuff, we still haven’t been able to hit her.”

  Throttle chucked a sword, planting it hilt deep into the tree where the herald had stood a moment before. Now, she stood behind the two of us, dropping two stones.

  I cracked Crapshoveler against the stone, and it exploded, tethering the blade to the ground. The second stone shimmered, glowing white on impact.

  I ripped the shovel from the ground, shielding myself and throttle from the explosion, ice melting harmlessly to water.

  As the fire died, I pulled my stats up again.

  {Grind}

  [ 72 Str ]

  “You can’t steal strength without dealing damage,” I said, smiling.

  The Heraldess punched me in the face.

  {Grind}

  [ (-40) 146 Hp ]

  As I staggered back, she flicked the last stone toward me, and it clattered uselessly to the ground.

  “A dud,” I mumbled.

  She pulled more stones from her palm, and in a puff, disappeared.

  Throttle groaned, rubbing her face. “This whole fight is ridiculous.”

  “There’s a pattern, isn’t there?” I asked.

  “How should I know?” She snapped. “The Heraldess goes around, tossing stones and random things happen.”

  I paused. “The purpose of this dungeon is to teach us about patterns. In all likelihood, it doesn't matter how fast you attack her. She’ll be able to use the teleportation stone anyway, and dodge your attack.”

  Throttle raised an eyebrow. “Alright, I assume you’ve got a plan or something?”

  I nodded. “She has to use one teleport to get away, and one to get closer. That leaves her with three stones. Two attacks, and a dud. She had to use all of them before grabbing more.”

  “And, for whatever reason, she uses the dud last,” Throttle grumbled. “That’s our moment to attack, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  Throttle huffed. “This dungeon is stupid. You shouldn't have to be thinking this hard about anything.” She glanced around the courtyard. “Not to mention the boss is frustratingly slow. After she hits one of us, she leaves for a solid minute.”

  “It’s likely intentional,” I stated. “The more time between attacks, the more likely we’ll figure out the trick to the fight.”

  Throttle frowned. “Why would she want that—”

  The Herald appeared behind us, two stones in hand.

  Instead, Crapsholver met her in the face, cracking the side of her jaw. Hundreds of pebbles littered the ground, glistening with a wide variety of gemstones.

  I watched them clatter to the ground. “Throttle, you don’t think—”

  She grabbed me by the arm and started running.

  Vines exploded from the ground, followed by waves of purple magic and intense blue light. Green copper and muddy black fire ignited, rupturing the stone beneath our feet, so I took the lead, jumping up onto a gnarled tree, ducking underneath a beam of light that seared into the opposite side of the arena.

  {Heraldess VI : 98 Hp}

  Throttle stumbled, panting hard. “I think I’m starting to understand why she’s a boss.”

  “That was a real hit,” I gagged, clambering down the side of the tree. “It should’ve done a lot more than that.”

  “Well it didn’t,” Throttle sighed. “How many stones was that?”

  “Fifty?”

  She snorted. “It felt like a hundred.”

  The Heraldess stepped closer, bobbing her head. I’d done a lot more damage than just to her jaw. One side of her face had been blown off, occasionally spilling pebbles, each shooting out an explosion of some miscellaneous element.

  “Rock, plants, purple stuff, blue light, and a bunch of fires,” I muttered, wincing. “Each time she attacks, she loses some amount of health, since it takes those pebbles. But that’s so little damage, it doesn’t even register. To kill her, we’ll probably have to use every single stone.”

  Throttle grabbed another, larger dagger from her inventory. “This is starting to get interesting.”

  The Herald shuddered, then, in puff, was beside us. She didn’t bother grabbing from her hand, instead, snapping a stone from her face and flicking it at us.

  I swung downward, ramming the explosion pellet into the ground, and the floor split, cracking open, revealing other crystal filled stones mixed within the gravel.

  We started running again, narrowly dodging a wide variety of lights and chirps and strange gelatinous matter that sprouted up from the gravel.

  “WHERE’D THOSE COME FROM?!” Throttle shouted, pulling more weapons from her inventory, blocking and parrying the variety of explosions in bursts, one after the other.

  The Heraldess stepped closer and closer, spilling pebbles from her face. Instead of activating, they twinkled with a soft glow, sinking deep into the floor.

  “She’s sowing them, like seeds,” I muttered. “They blend in with the rest of the stones.”

  “This is not how fights should work,” Throttle hissed. “We do one thing, then it does one things, then we try to stop that one thing—”

  “Do you prefer something else?” I asked.

  “Just give me something I can hit,” She muttered.

  The Heraldess pressed a hand to her face, and the crack shifted, pressing back into a slightly smaller sheet of rock.

  She opened her palm—now with a noticeable indent in its center—pulling seventeen or so stones.

  She kept most of them in one hand, using the other to sort between two or three.

  I had to think.

  This fight had a trick to it, like the gargoyle. Without the trick, this fight was likely impossible. We couldn’t win a war of attrition—she could dish out thousands of attacks while we grew weaker—so it had to be something that we could learn or understand in a relatively short amount of time.

  C’mon Grind, be less stupid. Think of something.

  The Heraldess had finally selected the stone she wanted. She held it between two fingers, using the others to sort through the rest of the stones.

  “I’ve got it,” I said, eyes flashing. “Or some of it, at least.”

  Thorttle blinked. “Enlighten me.”

  “Thats a teleportation stone,” I said, pointing to the one in her hand, apart from the rest. “That’s why she grabbed it first. So, if she doesn't have a teleportation stone—”

  “---then she can’t teleport, and she can be hit,” Throttle finished. “I think I’m starting to get what you mean.”

  She spat a dagger into the air, summoning a sledge hammered and belting it against the hilt—knocking up a cloud of dirt and rock.

  The blade flashed in the air, shattering against the stone wall, just behind the Herald. The herald in question appeared behind us, stone in hand.

  I was already swinging, catching the Herald in the side. Metal hit rock and we both shot backwards.

  Throttle jumped back, summoning another dagger. “Didya hit it?”

  There was a series of explosions, shooting off from the Heraldess.

  Throttle grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “But she got me,” I winced, one hand one my side, where I’d gotten a black gash. Since there wasn’t time to use a stone, she’d torn into my skin with her nails.

  {Grind}

  ~Infected Stat~

  [42 Str]

  “That’s pretty bad,” Throttle muttered. “How much damage did you do?”

  “One point,” I groaned. “Just one stupid point."