19. Chapter 19 The Succubus #3
"She's doing a pretty good job so far," I said.
Verath laughed. The sound echoed off the chamber walls and made the lava channels glow brighter. She threw a massive fireball, the biggest yet, a sphere of concentrated fire that came at the group like a small sun.
[Bubble.]
Golden light went up around the party. The fireball hit the barrier and the entire chamber lit up, fire washing over the dome in a torrent of red and orange that would have killed all of us twice.
Inside the bubble, nothing touched us. The gold held for three seconds, four, and the fire spent itself against the barrier and died.
I dropped the magic. My legs were shaking. That one had cost me.
"Oh," Verath said. She was staring at the space where the [Bubble] had been. "You have even more tricks. My pussy grows wet.”
She teleported down from the platform, directly in front of us, closer than she'd been since the fight started. Her red eyes were fixed on me and the curiosity in them had shifted to something hungrier.
She put a claw between her legs and rubbed some juices out. "Look at my wetness, healer."
She reached for me with her giant arm, black claws extended, reaching past Bjorna's shield.
I caught her wrist with both hands. The fluid on her claw splashed in my face. It was hot, sticky, and burned.
I closed my eyes and the cold came up.
[Smite.]
Verath screamed. The cold went into her like a blade. Her body seized, every line going rigid, dark blood blooming from her wrist where my hands gripped her. She ripped her arm free and stumbled back, cradling her wrist against her chest.
Her gaze held mine. The hunger in her eyes had doubled.
"Oh," she said again. "You really do have tricks."
The [Smite] had hurt her, but she was standing. She was boss-tier. One hit wasn't going to end this.
Verath attacked with renewed focus. Fireballs, teleportation, claws, tail sweeps. She was faster now, more aggressive, and she was talking the entire time, her voice cutting through the chaos of combat.
"Come with me, healer. I'll give you a throne beside mine."
Bjorna took a tail sweep that drove her backward. I healed the bruise before she recovered her stance.
"Your friends are tiring, healer. But you and I could go on forever."
Sif slashed her across the back but Verath teleported before the second dagger connected. Nott hit her with a bolt that made her flinch but didn't slow her down.
"The raven-kin's magic tickles," Verath said. "The dog’s blades sting. But your gold, healer. Your gold is something else. It makes me wet. You will be mine.”
Everyone was hurt. Bjorna had burns on her arms and a bruise along her ribs from a tail strike that had gotten past the breastplate.
Sif had a gash on her thigh from a claw swipe she'd been a fraction too slow to dodge.
Liv had been knocked off a bridge and caught herself on the edge, her shoulder wrenched.
Nott was running low, her bolts coming slower.
I healed what I could. Bjorna's burns first, then Liv's shoulder.
Sif waved me off before I could get to the gash.
"Her, not me," she said, pointing at Bjorna.
Nott didn't even let me touch her. "Save your energy," she said.
"You'll need it." Verath stood in the center of the chamber, her tail sweeping behind her, her gaze locked on me.
She was hurt. The [Smite] had left a mark on her wrist that hadn't healed.
Sif's cuts were still bleeding. Nott's bolts had left scorch marks across her torso.
But she was still standing and she was still focused on me.
She started walking toward me. Not teleporting this time. Slow, purposeful, her claws at her sides, her eyes burning.
"Last chance, healer," she said. "Come with me if you want your whores to live.”
Sif was behind her. Fifteen feet back, daggers drawn, breathing hard, the gash on her thigh still wet with blood I hadn't had time to heal again.
I looked at Sif and she looked at me and I knew what she was going to try. She was fast. The boots made her faster. But Verath was twelve feet tall, boss-tier, and she could teleport. Sif was fast, but she wasn't fast enough. Not on her own.
Something shifted inside me. Not the gold, not the cold. Something new. I looked at Sif and I wanted her to be faster than she was. Wanted her to be the one who ended this.
[Bolster. Rise beyond.]
I pushed it into Sif.
The new magic went out from my hands but it didn't go to a wound.
It went into Sif, into her muscles, her bones, her nerves.
It amplified her. The magic settled into her body and her eyes went wide and the air around her changed.
She looked down at her hands and then at me and her face did something I'd never seen from Sif before.
Not the grin, not the sharp teasing, not the confidence. She looked stunned.
"Go," I said.
Sif went.
Bolster made her something else beyond fast. She crossed the fifteen feet between her and Verath in a time I couldn't track. She was there and then she was behind Verath and her daggers were buried hilt-deep in the gap between the succubus's shoulder blades.
Verath's back arched. Her mouth opened and no sound came out. She stumbled forward, one step, then two, and her claws raked at the air where Sif had been. But Sif was already gone, pulled back by the boots and the [Bolster], standing ten feet away with dark blood on her daggers.
The succubus turned, slow and stiff. Her red eyes went to Sif, then past Sif, to me.
"Rare," she said. Her voice was fading. "I was right about you."
She fell. Twelve feet of dark skin and horns and too much of everything, crumpling to the stone floor of her throne room.
She hit the ground and the impact shook the chamber.
And then, like every dungeon creature before her, she began to dissolve.
The dark skin went gray. The horns crumbled.
The body came apart into ash and mana, dissolving into the stone, until there was nothing left but a scorch mark on the floor and drops of dark blood that evaporated into steam.
Nobody moved for a long time.
Loot appeared in the air above where Verath had fallen.
Items shimmered into existence, hanging in a slow rotation, catching the lava light.
Bjorna reached out and the first drop folded into her palm.
She grabbed the second, the third. Sif collected two more.
Nott and Liv took the rest. Everything went into rings. We'd sort it later.
The loot was still settling into our rings when the System hit.
[Level: 34.]
The notification sat in my vision for a second and faded. One level. I’d gone from 33 to 34 on a boss kill.
Liv made a sound beside me. Not pain. Surprise. Her ears shot straight up and her eyes went wide and she grabbed my arm.
“Two,” she said. “Daniel, I went up two levels.”
Bjorna was standing very still with her eyes focused on something only she could see. She blinked twice. “Two,” she confirmed. Her voice was steady but there was something underneath it. “Level 12.”