29. Is this a Carry?

The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible." — Arthur C. Clarke

Soon after killing the 12 sentinels, the party entered the crypt and arrived before a large gate with a large number of elites, who were swiftly killed.

Following that, Eagle's Light worked through a puzzle to open the gate, and they advanced, soon coming to a relatively wide room where the next mini-boss was. 

This was a forest spirit standing guard within the crypt; just from its appearance, one could tell that it had been corrupted somehow, as a small amount of black and red smoke was passively emanating from it. 

"Ok, this is easier than the last encounter. It's just classic boss fighting strategy, and we should be able to blow through this."

Everyone agreed, and the battle started and ended quickly.

It was not that the fights they had been having were easy; it was more like having an over-leveled and reasonably skillful tank and healer made it almost impossible to fail; even with just Holly and Off Button's DPS, they would be fine for nearly anything, not to mention Lazarus.

After the spirit died and they finished looting Off Button exclaimed excitedly.

"Oh, I got a set item drop for the Cryptic Conjuror's Set. Do you want it, Lazarus?"

She had heard him mention swapping out his gear for the dungeon set items and got one dropped to her; since she was playing a physical damage class that used stamina for attacks, it was essentially useless to her, so giving it to him was fine, as a group bound item it was not like she could sell it to anyone outside the group.

Hearing her, Lazarus was happy.

"Sure, what would you like in exchange?"

"If you get any Retreat Raider's Battlegear next dungeon, just send it my way."

Hearing she just wanted any pieces of a different set, he was happy to get the set item if he could drop it. 

She soon handed him a level 20 uncommon belt; looking at it, he was somewhat sad; even as a magical set item, it had a health enchantment.

On the other hand, since it was level 20, it gave more all-around stats, and because he had gotten a pair of boots of the same set earlier, he now had a 2-piece set bonus, which increased his spell critical chance by 6%. 

Although the buff seemed small, extra damage would help him kill things faster; getting more pieces in the set would be even better. 

Before long, they reached the inner area of the crypt and finally saw the Luminous Mantle, the item Eldrin had instructed them to retrieve. Unfortunately, similar black and red smoke had corrupted the mantle. 

Seeing that, Eldrin went crazy and began distorting before he morphed into something else before their eyes.

Seeing the partial transformation into a hideous creature, it was clear he was the final boss; of course, the blue health bar helped.

Looking at him, Bob gave the rundown of the situation.

"The boss has powerful physical attacks that keep me on the defensive throughout the fight; he has an ability where he will hit me with an undodgeable stun, then run around at incredible speeds and hit everyone; you have to block the attack, or you will probably die."

After him, their healer spoke.

"Once the boss gets below 10% HP, he will go berserk and become very hard to defend through, and I will have to burn my mana very quickly to keep everyone alive. Once my mana is out, I will use my healing ultimate, which should keep everyone alive for 10 seconds; I can only use heals as my mana recovers after that."

Hearing the tank and healer's explanation, the DPS were all ready.

When Bob taunted Eldrin, the fight started, and the battle began, and they were again thrown into a chaotic battle. 

Unfortunately, they quickly realized how jumpy the boss was, often shifting positions and walking out of the AOE abilities they were using. 

It was difficult for Holly to keep Searing Expanse on the boss and Lazarus to keep Stellar Collapse on the boss for the entire duration, leading to a loss of DPS. 

After seeing how the stationary damage over time abilities were not very effective, Paul decided to hold onto his ultimate and focus on his other damaging abilities, particularly Arcane Reaver and Starfire Seal.

Although he was still top damage, Off Button was close to him. As a fully single-target, she had a much easier time than them getting the maximum value of her attacks.

Honestly, the fight was simple; the idea of blocking after the tank was entirely stunned was simple to understand. Unless some were wholly tunnel-visioned, it would be difficult to miss it. 

With that in mind, the boss dropped under 10% without much issue. Unfortunately, things went downhill from there.

Technically speaking, when Eldrin's mechanic attacks everyone after stunning the take, he swipes each person with his two hands, technically, two attacks that happen almost simultaneously. 

That became important when Holly ran out of stamina to block after the first attack and was squarely hit by the second one, instantly killing her. Unfortunately for her, typically speaking, only blocking one of the attacks would be enough to survive. That was before the boss went berserk, though. Under 10%, its damage increased significantly, meaning both attacks had to be blocked, or a DPS would fall over.

Noticing the party member's health plummet to zero instantly, Off Button was distracted and forgot to block, also instantly dying.

Seeing the scene, the three remaining party members were somewhat stunned. How the heck did two of their DPS die instantly?

Seeing the scene, Eagle's Light spoke in an uncertain tone.

"Should we reset?"

Before Bob could respond, Lazarus did.

"Continue, just keep him alive as long as possible."

Hearing his response, she nodded. Even if they didn't end up killing the boss, wiping it would simply waste a few minutes; on the other hand, restarting the fight would mean they needed to spend another 20-30 minutes killing the boss.

As the fight continued, Paul was internally annoyed that he didn't have the ability to execute, which would have made killing the berserk boss much more manageable.

An execute ability is an ability that does significantly more damage to an enemy that is below a certain % of health; most abilities execute threshold being 25%. Having something like that would make these final stand phases much more straightforward.

Unfortunately, every execute ability was an evolved class ability, meaning you had to level up the ability to max and evolve it at a temple to unlock the execute portion of the ability.

As the fight continued, it was clear that Bob and Eagle's Light were both very low on their respective resources; this was apparent by the fact that their tank was hovering around half HP, and neither he nor their healer could cast more heals. 

At this point, the boss was around 2% HP, and they were running out of mana and stamina.

It happened abruptly, but when the boss made his heavy attack to stun Bob, he could not block because of a lack of stamina, causing him to die instantly from half-health.

Somehow, the last two survived the attack with all their ability, but now they had no tank.

"I will face tank for as long as possible; try to kill it!"

Hearing the healer volunteer to hold the boss was something nobody wanted to hear, but it was the only choice; if Paul tanked and died, Eagle's Light wouldn't be able to do anything anyway.

As the boss's health went down to 1%, the fight was in complete shambles; only a healer and DPS were alive, and neither had much mana. As she was about to die, however, Eagle's Light's healing ultimate went off cooldown.

Instantly, the arena was filled with golden light, and her and Paul's health jumped up and down rapidly as the boss attacked them.

The boss's HP was nonexistent after the ultimate ended, but it was still alive.

Without giving anyone time to react, it stunned the trembling elf who had been blocking with everything to survive a normal attack, let alone ability, leaving her at under 5% HP, surviving solely because of being level 34 and having all set armor.

Seeing what happened, Lazarus knew he was dead; he had no stamina to block and instantly folded like a pancake when the boss arrived before him.

As Eagle's Light hoped to run away from the boss while trying to basic attack it, Lazarus's Starfire Seal burst, dealing the final few hundred damage needed to finish the boss.

Seeing the scene, she fell to her knees, crying and laughing.