Episode 6: BOSS BATTLE

SummaryBOSS BATTLE The Sunfall Cycle Episode 6
The four awaken, hearing the gentle breeze of the foliage around them. They lay on the soft grass on the Gardens of the Moon. Selune strides over as always and greets them as usual. Sarrek impatiently presents the tears and demands her to grant them the power from the tear. Selune is overjoyed and thankful. When she reaches out for the tears and grabs them, the sink into her skin, and begins to glow a pale white. She asks for Serrek's palm, but he hesitates and tells her to perform the ritual on Armaros first.

She reaches up to the sun above her, and pulls another thin sliver, inserting it on one of the circles around the edge of the mark that activates the Sunfire Braziers. This adds embellishment and a circle or runes to the palm. She mentions she will soon be able to grant them a place among the garden to call their own. The others undergo this same process.

Aya begins to accept the power granted from the Sunfire needle, but like an oil slick, black barrier, something cold grips at her heart, blocking it. Attiq'usu, the Old One that Aya serves, absorbs the power, and returns to Aya, a fraction of his own powers.

Enkara embraces the power, and focuses on the circle of the moon, enhancing her shapeshifting abilities. When Enkara opens her eyes, Selune is holding out a mint colored shard from an ancient moon and tells Enkara that if she plants it, she can make a home here. She plants it near the lake, and immediately crystals and multicolored rocks grow from the ground, accompanied by life-bearing trees. The shards continue to grow until they form a large enclosed structure. Inside, Enkara sees a finely locked pearl and silver chest, currently empty, but useful for storage.

Selune identifies a flask and dagger that Armaros has found among their travels. The Dagger is called, "Fang of Dahaka". Those magically inclines can use it as a spell focus. Some devotees fixate on the blood aspect, seeking to thicken their own in preparation for the coming night. It is an ornate serpent dagger, the hilt is etched and inscribed in a scale pattern of a serpent. Resting at the back end is a counterweight in the shape of a serpent's head. The blade emerges seamlessly from the hilt, beaten down into a sinuous curving blade, wickedly sharp. Armaros sells the flask to Maine, to which the crow takes, stores deep in the tree, and returns to vomit up twenty-five pieces of gold.

They decide to return to their realm and move up through the fireplace entrance. They listen in on the guards in the next room, as they question why there is a Solar Demon in the room, and if they should do anything about it.

The encounter with the guards goes without much issue, Armaros took a few hits, but everyone else came out unscathed. They check-in on Tim in the cauldron and Enkara hears him say that he wants warmer, that he wants friends and he is lonely. They understand this to mean that he wants to be reunited with other Solar Demons. Sarrek is wary of this, but Aya is all for helping Tim, who is also offering shiny things in return for them finding his friends. In the meantime, Armaros breaks the door to the north, snaps it into pieces, and puts it under the cauldron for Tim. They move on to the chain room and climb the ladder.

Once they get to the top of the ladder, they notice the room is behind them. The room is twenty-five feet wide, and to the south is a doorway. It is a simple room with a few small stacked barrels, some bookshelves with rotting ledgers. The door however is blocked by a thick scintillated wall of white fog. Enkara slowly tries to peek her head into the fog to see what is on the other side.

In the room past the fog is a brightly lit room, in the center is a brazier burning low with coals, standing on a set of three spindly legs. Across from her on the other side of the brazier is a massive wall of huge wooden beams and iron reinforcements containing hundreds of wrought iron gears, pulleys, belts, wheels, and counterweights. In front of the wall is a man with he back turned, he then turns and glares at Enkara. He wears a burnished bronze cherub mask, twisted with an expression of extreme sorrow, with a splash of red blood across the middle. He is equipped with pure white leather armor with gilded studs. On his chest is a leather bandolier of daggers. In his had, he carries an ivory white ceramic scimitar and points to Enkara and says. "Intruders, you will never make it into the Palace Compound". So begins the fight with Udama the Blood Knight.

The group manages to get a few hits in before Udama strikes in a flurry of attacks, throws a dagger that plunges into Enkara's side, and then he retreats to the room to the left. The party is wary and groups up in the center, Enkara turning into a Tiger. Armaros begins to go forward into the room Udama had gone into. The Blood Knight appears and rapidly swings at Armaros, unable to break his guard. Unfazed, Armaros counter attacks with an effective cleave, making solid contact with Udama. While this is happening, Sarrek begins to climb the various crates and planks, getting ready to spring a drop attack against their foe. Udama flinches in pain and retreats to another room further back, Armaros following right after, and is able to get another impressive strike against the knight, as he is running away. Udama staggers, removes a dagger from his bandolier, mutters under her breath some strange incantation, and begins to carve through his chest, sawing through bone.

"Ssanath hissai areth minESS"

The blood that is profusely pouring out, congeals into an oozy blood pseudopod, which swings and misses Armaros. Sarrek plunges from above striking Udama with his rapier, a slight pain runs up his legs from the twenty-foot fall. Udama kicks over the brazier in the room, the burning coals hit Enkara, Sarrek, and Aya. Sarrek, who was just recovering from the fall is unable to move out of the way of the coals and falls unconscious from the pain. Armaros swings, his attack being parried just as Udama dashes away, into another room. Enkara and Aya both return to the previous room and get ready to strike Udama, or push the brazier in this room, at the knight. From hiding, Udama launches a few blood pseudopod tentacles at Armaros, and runs back towards the room with the fog gate, only to be met with a force of burning coals, from the brazier that Aya has kicked. Udama unable to dodge out of the way takes the brunt of the damage. With a burning expression of pain, he lashes out at Armaros and Aya with more blood pseudopods. Armaros easily deflects it off his shield, but Aya isn't so lucky, being knocked unconscious and the bloody tentacle highlighted by the dying coals, pulsates as it drains Aya, and restoring Udama. Enkara tries to bite at Udama, but he is still nimble enough to dance around her maw. Udama makes several more attacks at the two remaining, missing almost all of his strikes, but manages to latch onto Enkara's beastly shape with a pseudopod. The tiger recoils and then pounces at the knight, only to be pushed to the side with a punch. They both struggle against Udama, neither side getting any good hits. Udama finding it too easy to dodge the tiger, he focuses on taking Armaros out.

The seasoned knight finds it very challenging but manages to find an opening in Armaros' guard. A skilled scimitar slash is enough to cause the fighter to lose consciousness. Before hitting the ground, Udama stabs a knife into a weak spot in the armor.

Enkara feels all the weight and pain of the fight. The smell of her singed fur and flesh, and the copious amounts of blood, is all-encompassing. Her paws sting with every step, the floor covered in remains of the brazier. Udama starts to feel very good about the fight. Not once has the monstrous beast even touch him during the fight. He was once outnumbered, but now he out skills the tiger. Latched onto the tiger is a single thirsty pseudopod, and as Enkara grows weaker, Udama grows stronger with each passing moment.

Enkara makes a desperate bite but flinches as she runs across the burning coals. In the time that it takes for the tiger to recover, Udama forms two more bloody tendrils, swinging them at Enkara. She manages to leap out of the way of the first one, but she runs right into the other. The thick ooze melds to her flesh, tethering her to Udama, a second time. Without letting off for a single second, he throws two daggers. One misses, the other sticks into the beast's side.

In an instant, Enkara feels her predatory instincts kick in. Realizing this is the final chance, in a life and death situation. Udama begins to form two more pseudopods, but before he even notices, a tiger claw swipes at his throat. The sharpness of the claw leaves a grisly tear from side to side, but the force is enough to bat the head clean off the shoulders, and it flies across the room.

The body of the knight shivers before dissolving into nothingness. Leaving behind some gold, a single tear of Selune glowing on the ground, and the burnished bronze cherub mask.

Enkara relinquishes her tiger form and casts a spell to heal Armaros, the only companion left alive. They both spend some time resurrecting Sarrek and Aya. When they all come to and take a moment to rest, Aya takes a look at the mask and can feel a magical presence emanating from it. Sarrek begins to share his rations without thinking about it but quickly starts taking it all back as they try and eat it. They investigate the other rooms on this floor, searching the barrels, to find them filled with oil. Enkara spends that wheel on the machine, the sounds of heavy chains echoing through the entire structure, as the portcullises start to raise. They see a trap door at the top of a ladder, and when Armaros opens it, the bright sun greets him. He hears the shifting of the air behind him, he turns and sees a massive creature with bony knobs and spikes jutting all over its jaw, and over the crown above his beady red eyes. It had two brutalist wings sprouting from a thick heavy ribcage, powerful legs, and a long whip-like tail. Armaros immediately slams the hatch, and they agree to deal with it later.

They decide to simply make their way back to the brazier, and return to the moon. There, Selune greets them as usual and then identifies the mask for the party. It is called the Mask of the Blood Knight and allows the user to store extra life granted from any healing source, but only once a day, and as temporary life.

Main Cast

 * Armaros
 * Aya
 * Enkara
 * Sarrek Bashaa

NPCs

 * Selune
 * Attiq'usu
 * Mane
 * Tim, the Solar Demon

Special Enemies

 * Udama, The Blood Knight

Cumulative Statistics
Statistics that track across the entire series.