Day 23, Cont
Our winner is - [x] 5. Have Seto, Satoshi, Dark, and Lightning Hoof focus on the adds. Everyone else fights the boss
Paladin wins our stat vote, (2/0/3/0/3/2)
"Kitan, focus on healing everyone. Fluffy, keep the buffs flowing and help me with the boss. I'm gonna trust the rest of you to handle those adds." You were the best tank of the guild, even if other people had more 'proper' tank classes. So you had to entrust the work to the group you'd been running with so far. Fluffy... you kind of knew in your head that she wouldn't have been useful if you told her to do something besides help you. You were dumb but you weren't stupid. "I'm gonna try to keep everyone else alive long enough for them to burn down the boss."
"Ugh, cleanup duty." That got an eye roll from Lightning Hoof, "Whatever."
"Got it." Satoshi gave a thumbs up to the plan, "I'll make sure to try and snipe them down and keep them from fusing."
"If any fuse, leave them to me to handle." Seto didn't thumbs up, but did give a nod.
"I-I-I guess I-'ll uhm. I mean, they'll be more help than me but..." He pressed his fingers together as he looked back towards the ghosts.
Both of Dark's ghost summons gave bows as you gave the order and Dark Blade agreed. The two ghosts summoned in tandem had worked well together. Ichinose was deferential to the new ghost known as Kiyo, despite being clearly the stronger of the two. But you understood why just by looking at the ghostly woman - clad in armor not unlike your own, the heavy regalia of a samurai and wielding a katana. She clearly outranked the peasant soldier that was Dark's first summon.
"I shall carry out all of my liege's orders well. Ichinose, remain close to me. Do not stray far." She gave the order without hesitation, never even looking at the ashigaru ghost.
"As you command, Kiyo-sama." Despite only being together for a couple hours, you saw no complaints from the ghost at being ordered around. Indeed, all of the ghosts had been exceedingly deferential to Kiyo. It seemed every necromancer in your guild had started with a ghost of low status.
With the plan handed out to your party, you turned to announce it to everyone else, "Four of my party will be working hard to keep the additional slimes from ganging up on us. Our job is to kill this Slaimyo as quickly as possible. That means healers keeping everyone healed up well, and everyone putting their all into getting every bit of damage they can out. Then we'll all go home and celebrate with a nice big party~"
That last sentence got people fired up at least.
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You weren't sure what you were expecting of the Slaimyo, but the iridescent diamond-like slime looked downright regal in his grand throne of golden slime upon which he sat. You could have mistaken him for a man at a distance, if it wasn't for how he rose up - the jelly like nature of his limbs causing him to bounce as he lifted himself off, "Once again invaders seek to destroy my home and all I have built in it. We will not have it - I am the ruler here, I am the law, I am the divine within my domain!" His words boomed through the room, making the jellified throne room shake and jiggle. It was the first time any slime had spoken, and it was accompanied by a dark pulsating blast of an evil looking red energy, and the slamming shut of the door behind you... which faded into nothing, just slime wall. You were locked in.
As soon as that red energy bounced off one of the walls, guardian slimes began to form from the point of contact, "Come invaders - soon all will join in my great kingdom, but you shall be amongst the first!" It was with that a blade seemed to form from his hand. You were already approaching him, and you realized now that he was... very very large. Easily standing at ten feet tall you were half his height. But it also made him a big target, and long before you had personally reached him the attacks of your ranged companions had. The boss didn't even seem to flinch away from them - there was no signs of damage left behind.
Your huge shield intercepted the massive 'nodachi' that aimed towards the melee fighters of your group. You weren't the fastest of the group, but you weren't the slowest either - and by putting yourself at the edge you accomplished your goal of taking the blow yourself. Bits of slime flew off the blade however, and struck those closest to you with heavy acid.
Both katana and naginata had glowing edges where Fluffy's enhancement magic overlaid on them, and you could feel yourself moving a little more lightly as well as you utilized the reach of your staff to try and send a blow upwards towards the wrist of the Slaimyo's arm before it could pull back, while your blades simply cut at the 'armored' legs. Even with the strength of your weapons, they were barely making small scratches on him.
A stomp from the leg sent multiple of your guild members flying backwards - amongst them was Banyan, the turtle having moved behind the boss with the other members of the tortoise's children. The sudden poison fog that poured out of them as they were hit showed why they would do so, as they kept themselves away from the mass of melee fighters around the Slaimyo's front. The giant nodachi blade came down again before you had time to regain your sure footing, and your new shield took another solid hit - but this time the globs of acid were aimed right at you. Your katana flew back to defend you in an instant, cutting two of them in half. And you just barely managed to bat a third out of the air.
The one that hit you square in the chest burned, but it wasn't debilitating to your health bar. Your heavy armor and high stats meant you felt pretty secure as your health only went down a small amount.
But it hurt - you felt the wind get knocked out of your chest, and you nearly doubled over as you tried to catch your breath. Your summons were certainly doing their jobs at attracting the Slaimyo to aim for you - because it didn't hesitate to follow up, "My name is written in the histories themselves! No one will remember yours!" His fist transformed into a smaller more dagger like blade compared to the nodachi he was wielding before. The huge heavy shield was too slow to move to cover you like you would have hoped - but both naginata and katana intercepted themselves. More than that, two ghostly ashigaru suddenly had their spears on either side of you, and they helped to deflect the followup attack.
"Get it together, Hita!" It was OneShot of all people who yelled out at you, as he shot straight past you. You could have sworn he was literally giving off heat as he jumped up and ran up the boss' arm. The spear embedded itself in the boss' eye, but you could see the Kirin man struggling to pull the weapon back out. Indeed, it began to suck him in instead, you watched as his foot began to get absorbed into the slime boss. A blow from his sword came towards you in the same moment, and you barely blocked it due to your distraction.
"It's not even a good weapon, dumbass!" DankTank charged in as his friend refused to let go of the weapon. The large shield he was wielding rivaled your own in size, and he caught the arm that was coming up to pull OneShot into the diamond-slime body. In the same moment white fire, globs of poison, and a large shard of metal all mixed together as they hit the arm at once. Flying right past your head.
It wasn't enough to blow the arm off, but the Slaimyo relented and OneShot managed to pull free from it. In that same moment you moved in to support DankTank's own, slower, retreat - braving the poisonous fog coming off the Tortoise as you use staff and shield to slow down the sword that was coming for him. Bits of slime still impacted those behind and around you, but you blocked the majority of the attack as your naginata pierced at his face as you moved firmly into range of the large royal slime.
"Puny children utilizing blessings of false gods!" The Slaimyo roared out as your group finally managed to make a real wound on him, light flashing from him, "I am the divine!" He repeated his words, and all at once every bit of magic around you sputtered and weakened. Even your summons started to move more sluggishly, and you could see the ashigaru who had moved to support you's form weakening in solidity as it went out.
[You are under the effect of the debuff "Rejected Divinity". All divine skills are weakened by 40%.]
"No one warned us about this!" You heard Kitan yell it as the great circle of fire he had just finished summoning turned from an intense pillar of fire to a much smaller assault. The wounds of all those struck with acid were still healing, but you could feel the difference as the white flame washed over your body.
"He didn't do this last time!" Ali called back.
"Kitan!" You could hear Lightning Hoof's voice at the same moment, but you couldn't turn to see what she was yelling about. Because the Slaimyo wasn't slowing down just because your weapons were - indeed he instead formed a smaller sword out of his offhand, and wielded two blades as he stepped into attacking you now, instead of standing back and allowing you to approach.
All of your weapons shifted to defending as they moved as if caught in the slime themselves, sluggishly parrying his attacks that aimed for you. Your staff was the only thing moving at full force, but each time you brought it up to try and parry one attack, another came from the other side and forced you to step back. And even with each block you could see and feel your health ticking down - your armor was strong, but you still needed to be healed between the attacks if you were going to keep up with it.
Normally when fighting with the others by your side, they knew how to fill the gaps in your defenses - Satoshi's arrows would threaten an enemy's eye right when you were recovering from blocking, or Lightning Hoof would rush in and land a blow to distract them, or Dark Blade's Ichinose would have your back prodding at the enemy to keep them away from you. You lacked that in this fight, and you could feel the difference in working with the guild and working on your own. You had no experience in working together with the large group - so even though there were more of them, it felt more difficult than with your smaller more intimate group.
You were getting in the way of each other more than anything - Nyakko had slipped past you to try and land a slash against the slime's legs, but as she did so your naginata moved to block the shorter blade - and cut off her path forward as she slammed into the blocked arm instead. Your tried to turn the boss away from where Zanba was punching, only to hear a yell as you pointed him towards where the very physically weak necromancers were standing instead.
You were chipping him down, and he was chipping away at you - but you had numbers on your side. It seemed like victory was assured.
"I'm running out of mana!" That was the first sign of problems, as Lotus called out.
"There's too many of them! Heal!" The second one was worse, as it drew your attention back away from the boss.
Your group was strong, they'd survived ten minutes of fighting all of the boss' summons on their own after all, with only minimal support as the boss laid into the whole group with attacks that hit everyone in an area. But they were bloodied and beaten, and it was clear that they weren't able to keep up on their own. Lightning Hoof killed a Guardian Slime that was about to merge with three others, but the second she did the others attacked her. You couldn't see her health bar, but you could see how the slammed into her as she retreated back, and the way she flinched in pain and held her leg. The slow regeneration of the long term buff was not enough to keep her going for long.
"I don't have enough mana for a big heal, just avoid getting hit!" Kitan yelled back as she nursed her wounds. He seemed stressed as he turned and refreshed the slow healing buff on Seto, who was now fighting with his sword in hand as he went one on two with a pair of Samurai Slime. He had killed it, but it'd landed blows on him as well - and his armor wasn't built to absorb the attacks like yours was. You could feel the difference in your armor now as you watched blades that barely hurt you cut through and draw blood readily.
"My Liege!" Ichinose called out first, as a Samurai Slime stabbed Dark Blade through the back as he healed the ghost that had been pulled away by another. Blood erupted from the boy's mouth, and the samurai slime erupted into purple death energy as an arrow pierced through it and exploded inside, Satoshi a step too late to save Dark.
"Not again!" Kiyo cried out in pain as she and Ichinose began to fade away, the whisping azure ghosts losing form - the weapons of the enemies they were stopping just cutting straight through their last attempts to parry, as Dark Blade turned to bright light and disappeared.
"My kingdom will not fall! My kingdom will never fall! I will save every life within it, forever, and we will become strong once more!" The Slaimyo slammed you with a huge flag pole out of seemingly nowhere, and even with your automated weapons protecting you - you went flying, bowling through Zanba as you did so. Your weapons were yanked into your range as you flew, but the Slaimyo didn't take advantage of the fact that the other melee fighters were now without their tank as he instead stood still, both arms holding the huge 'staff'. "You will be absorbed into me, and you will live again through me! My commands are law!"
As he said it, the Guardian Slimes stopped spawning - and instead full sized Samurai Slimes began to step out of the walls at the edge of the arena. They moved quickly and you could see the energy pulsating in them as they pressed in to attack those without support first.
"Fuck!" Was all you heard as Lightning Hoof was the next to die.
"It's gotta be his last phase! What kind of boss has more than three!?" OneShot yelled it out as he ran in again, "We just have to push and we can kill it!"
People were dying. More than that, your group mates you'd started with, the ones who helped you get the guild to where it was were dying. Death wasn't pleasant, but as another person turned to white pixelation and faded away into their respawn, the thought crossed your mind. You could win the fight, gain whatever reward came with it, maybe even a title could come with it for being the first group to do it. Maybe if you pushed hard you'd win it. Or you could throw the match.
Everyone would be losing gold and experience from it - and you might even lose an item or two. But if there were big rewards for being the first to kill the Slaimyo, wouldn't it be right to share it with everyone from the guild... from your group? Would Lightning Hoof be angry if you won without her? Would Satoshi? But would the guild forgive you for throwing just to help out your friends? How many people would survive to reap rewards anyways?
[x] A. Fight for victory, no matter who stands in the end, to minimize costs.
[x] B. Throw the match to maximize potential rewards, at the cost of immediate losses.
