The Gamer Chapter 1425 – Thorough Grinding 17 – The Enchantress (Patreon)


Predictably, the Enchantress had been in the uppermost chambers of the highest spire in the city. The path there had been winding and complicated, full of magical puzzles and Astria Witches. Now they stood in the many-coloured spectacle that the stained glass windows painted on the floor. Far above them, the Enchantress hovered, her green and black robes fluttering endlessly in the ethereal winds of magic. She seemed unsteady around the rim, as if her dress was constantly fraying, without losing any mass at all.

John directed his gaze to the floor. There were three concentric circles. The outermost was gold, the middle one silver, and the innermost copper. An announcement on an area attack mechanic if John ever had seen one. The gothic architecture beyond that was more interesting, but also so stereotypical that John did not care much for it. The entire area screamed ‘witch’ from start to finish.

A portal pad appeared nearby, which made everyone groan in relief. The days they had spent advancing from the last boss room to this one had been filled with no small amount of retracing their steps after wipes, sleep or food breaks. The next checkpoint was always good to have.

“Lorelei on her way?” Metra asked.

“I’m currently searching for her,” John confirmed. They took the few minutes until the seer arrived to have a sit down and rest.

Lorelei appeared dishevelled beyond the regular slight mess her blindly woven braid was. “I apologize for the delay,” she said and forcefully regulated her breath. She had sprinted after John had given her the notice.

“No worries,” Rave was the first to assure. “Gotta tell us what this is about though. ‘Cause Gaia says she can’t be killed and that’d be a terrible Raid boss design.”

“I shall attempt to foresee weaknesses as best I can… may I?” The question was purely reflexive, she knew better than to wait for the answer. She held John’s hands between her own and raised them in prayer. “Greatest and benevolent Lady, let me spy into your blessed Gamer’s future,” she whispered to herself.

There was a vague shifting of magic around her. The very fabric of the world around her turned into thin strings that could only vaguely be felt by the most acute senses. All information that Gaia could have conveyed was reduced until Lorelei’s mind could understand it with her human mind. When Lorelei had explained the process, she had used more divinely inspired language.

“My Lady points to the path of benevolence… A golden road surrounded by swirling symbols of foul spellcraft. The road narrows and narrows as it continues. Three times it narrows and many times you stand before the shield. As the cracks on its surface recede, you step forwards. The road swirls with many hazards and you have to step into the storm to escape the inevitable end.”

“A healing encounter, I suspected as much.” John scratched the back of his head.

“Healing encounter?” Metra, for all of her enjoyment of video games, was not as deep in the jargon as most of them.

“Occasionally, you defeat a boss by healing it up rather than killing it,” John explained. “Typically, that’s accompanied either by adds that try to stop you from doing so or the boss is made up of a damaging phase that you have to get through. Once you do, the healing becomes available for a limited time. Then the damaging phase begins again and you repeat until it’s done. I’d guess that this is the second type.”

“O-only one way to f-find out, right?” Gnome asked.

John nodded at the cuddle rock. “You’ll be important in this fight,” he told her. “You and Undine.” The two were the only true healers they had available – although Undine was vastly superior when it came to this task. “Our general strategy for the first few tries will be to take it slow. We want to conserve as much mana as possible for Undine and Gnome so they can do burst heals. Which means everyone, especially me, should stay out of harm’s way.” He looked over his assembled crew, then up to the boss. “We won’t make any line-up adjustments yet.”

With that announcement, Lorelei stepped back into the teleporter and the grinding began.

Attempt 1 was marked by the typical issues of dealing with unfamiliar mechanics. Once the party crossed through the golden circle, the Enchantress created a swirling vortex of arcane that stopped at that outline. Then she hovered down into their striking range. In theory, anyway, as she immediately proceeded to bind half of them with the same ethereal tentacles that the Astria Witches had used.

Unlike her servants, the Enchantress could just create her own focuses from thin air. Hovering balls of arcane crystal that required to be shattered before the five bound people could move again. While they attempted to unshackle them, they were bombarded by projectile spells. When she had some breathing room, the Enchantress drew a magical circle on the ground with gestures of her offhand.

That was about as much as they learned during the first attempt as they were shortly wiped by the torrent of attacks and the gradual crushing of the gripped allies.

By Attempt 3, they understood how the shackles selected their targets. It was one per fifth of the arena. Whoever was closest to that fifth was the one getting grabbed. The foci for the tentacle spell were then located at the centre of each segment. The timing was once at the start of the fight and once every minute after that.

Attempt 6 was when they first saw the healing phase of the boss. After taking enough damage and expending enough of her saved energy, the Enchantress peeled back like an opening curtain. Inside was a red-armoured knight, hanging lifelessly in the sticky magic. Undine and Gnome hastened to the inert boss, in the centre of the room. Everyone else followed only because the vortex at the outskirts of the arena gradually closed in. When it hit the silver ring, it stopped, and the fight resumed.

They wiped here because they were not properly prepared for the way the decreased arena size interacted with the other mechanics. The shackles were located within the now vortex-afflicted area of the arena. Their previous strategy had been to let their tanks be shackled and have the DPS take care of it afterwards. With the steady damage the vortex dealt, simultaneously interfering with ranged attacks, they had to swap that around.

What actually wiped them though was the magical circle the Enchantress drew. With less area to cover, drawing it was much quicker. Everything not covered by the vortex was consumed by a geyser of arcane energy, torrenting upwards for several seconds. John was caught up in it and consequently everyone was teleported out.

They swapped out Momo for Lydia at that point. Since there was bound to be parts of the fight where there was absolutely no place to exist without taking damage, the support would be bereft of all of her Firefaes and that made her temporarily useless. Better to have an extra DPS to clear out the shackles. They also used Nia for one attempt, to try and see if she could screw with the mechanics a bit. The arcane energy of the Enchantress was so intense that trying to weather the vortex got Nia dangerously close to fading, so that plan was discarded immediately.

For 10 more attempts, they just learned the fight. How to deal with the shackles, primarily, but also how to deal with the new mechanic of the second phase: projectile attacks bounced off the wall of the vortex now. Only once per projectile and they slowed tremendously upon reflection. Still, that was enough to complicate battlefield awareness.

They also found out that the phase transition wasn’t after each healing attempt. There was no HP bar to track, so this was only a guess on John’s part, but it appeared that the second and third phases were initiated at 33% and 66% HP restored, respectively. With that knowledge, a new strategy became available: heal the knight within the Enchantress to 32% on first exposure, to linger in the easy first phase for longer. The only disadvantage of that was that the Enchantress got to finish one magic circle. They all had to run for the thin vortex beyond the golden circle. Hiding in the permanent AoE zone allowed them to escape the short-lived burst-zone.

While the boss did not have an HP bar to track regarding how much healing they did, John could measure how much mana he sent to Undine and Gnome to support their healing. With that, they found the perfect margin to follow the plan.

Attempt 17, they saw the third phase for the first time. The vortex shrunk down to the bronze ring. Rather than projectiles, the Enchantress now charged up lasers that bounced two times off either the vortex or the floor. John had to carefully coordinate everyone in the 3 second charge up between each laser. When it came to lasers bouncing around, Arcana Ray had taught him plenty.

While she fired the lasers, the Enchantress also constantly wove the now much smaller magic circle. There was an explosion every 10 to 15 seconds. All the while, the shackles were now deep in the vortex. The entire party constantly took damage, dancing in and out of the damaging zone. Things got incredibly dicey when the tendrils and the magic circle overlapped.

It all required precision timing, flawless coordination, and just a bit of luck. John could already see how this boss would be trivialized by being over levelled. If they could just stand in the vortex, half of the mechanics could be ignored. They lacked that defensive power, however, and they needed to minimize the damage they took so Undine and Gnome still had mana to heal the knight when she became accessible.

They continued until Day 13 came to an end. On Day 14, they went at it with renewed enthusiasm. They were close and their minds had time to digest all the information during the rest period. Attempt 25, they almost got it. Just a little more mana and they would have managed to burst heal her in the last phase.

John felt the vortex grind over his skin. The ethereal winds tore open the equally magical skin of the Ambassador Double. Damage to the item was a necessary sacrifice, mana a more precious resource than health. In his UI, he saw that Salamander followed Siena through the Fateweaving. Beatrice would soon be pulled out as well. Rave had done a bit better at the dodging in this attempt. The combined protection and regeneration did more than the flat regeneration of the maids as well.

The torrent of magic in front of them ended and they all rushed back into open space. There was no one whose epidermis was not crackling with the remains of arcane energy. No one’s HP was above 15%. By John’s calculations, however, he had just enough mana to heal what he had extrapolated was the remaining HP of the boss.

The Enchantress pointed her index finger at Metra. “Metra – down, Jane – jump!” John shouted orders. The First of Wrath immediately dropped to the floor. The Enchantress lowered her finger in turn, but not fast enough to catch the wolf berserker. The changed angle caused the double bouncing to follow John’s estimated path exactly. With a ‘SHWOOM!’ sound, it passed by his head and underneath Rave’s feet.

All the while the right hand of the boss kept whirling. Purple lines advanced along the floor. They turned and swirled when hitting the bronze circle.

Lydia rushed forwards, Strimata’s blade dissolving almost entirely – to the point that the queen tossed away the rapier itself. Between her hands stretched a myriad of thin wires. With a leap, she wrapped the prismatic strings around the boss’ limb, hindering her attempts at continuing the circle with all her strength. An inconvenience – one that would buy them several seconds.

Even while the Enchantress tried to free herself, she pointed her finger at the next target. It was Gnome. The almost dead, slow, and vital second healer. “Aclysia – Left, Undi-“ He did not get to finish the thought. A sudden determination touched his mind, and where Aclysia had been a moment ago, she instead appeared in front of Gnome.

Whether the season elemental could have dodged or not, who knew, but Aclysia stopped such speculations by using Aid. Taking the entire damage on herself, the maid disappeared, preventing the attack from bouncing around.

Metra and Rave were striking the boss with all they got. Lydia kept pulling until her head turned redder than her hair from the strain. Beatrice landed a Needle Assault and that was it. With an echoing cry, the chest of the Enchantress burst open. All spells except the vortex ceased. The red knight within was struggling, snapping some of the sticky tendrils off herself. Just a little more and she would get there.

Undine and Gnome put their hands on the chest of the knight. All of John’s remaining mana flowed towards them. Slime disappeared on the metal as quickly as it touched it, joining the green light around Gnome’s hands to form a revitalizing swirl.

With one valiant cry, the knight ripped her arm out of the mass of magic. The party shouted with her when the rest of the body soon followed. The Enchantress screamed in rage and dissipated into a million pieces, dragging the vortex around them with her.

Only the laughter of success filled the room. Lydia obliged Rave in a high-five, before the two shared a deep hug. Beatrice joined immediately. The entire party gradually coalesced around the pair, forming a hug circle. After it broke up, the red knight addressed them.

“Although you are invaders, I thank you… my husband will be most interested in facing you, no doubt. You, who have banished the Enchantress back into the flow of magic. Finally, I am free… I shall go see him now. Here, take this as your reward.”  She flicked her wrist and a chest with a lid like a tower shield appeared. Then, the red knightess disappeared.

“28 tries… not the worst, but man, that was satisfying.” John waited with opening the chest until everyone interested had a chance to come around. They were still healing by that time and Rave was constantly shifting her weight. The Restorative Heat was in effect and he would have to ‘cleanse’ her of it soon enough.

They found one of both iterations of the wand, robe, and focus inside. The robes they kept for Lorelei. They were not entirely fitting for her, but they worked for her general style and would make for worthwhile gala dresses. Exuding powerful magical energies sometimes was worthwhile as an intimidation tactic.

They also found an Amethyst of Endless Surfaces, which was a gemstone that eased enchantments of the spatial distortion variety. Any of his crafting-inclined haremettes could make use of that one. To start with, he gave it to Lee for studying. The only interesting item was the Enchantress’ Mantle, a green and black dress that constantly frayed and remade itself. It created the impression that one was constantly surrounded by a mist of ethereal strings. It had a variety of other, caster-oriented enchantments, but nothing that worked for anyone among them.

‘We must have rolled low on the loot table,’ John thought when that was all they got. A few more clothes for Lorelei and nothing else of note. Well, two more levels were also quite nice.

John was now level 574.