Anika considered for a moment the best strategy for defeating the water buffalo boss that would keep the party safe. Philip had learned from Zali to create walls to prevent trampling monsters. Hawthorn had the same Earth magic, so perhaps he could create a similar wall. Holes in the ground could also prevent the charge attacks that would harm Hawthorn without his stone skin as well as harming the Capy pack. Or maybe they could use something like caltrops.

  “Lily, you said you have 27 rocks in your storage, right?”

  “Nope! I have 29 now! I found a new one yesterday and another in the prairie today!”

  Anika shook her head at the strange collection, but for now they could use it.

  “Okay, we are going to create some uneven ground. Hawthorn, you are going to use your Earth magic to create holes in the ground, and stack up the dirt you remove into little hills. Lily, you are going to dot the ground with your rocks, creating hazards for the monster to trip over. This should prevent it from charging and force it to attack only with its water magic or hoof attacks at close range. A close range kick won’t do as much damage as a full speed charge.”

  “Okay! I will take out all my rocks!” Lily began excitedly taking rocks out of her scarf storage, a large pile quickly taking shape next to her. By the time she had stacked all 29 rocks, the pile was as large as Hawthorn. Anika shook her head in disbelief.

  Hawthorn, on the other hand, had immediately begun digging and created several holes in the space between them and the boss. Anika hoped their preparations didn’t attract the attention of the boss before they could finish. Once Lily saw how Hawthorn laid out the holes, she began floating her rocks into position around the field.

  They spent about ten minutes preparing the battlefield, including having Hawthorn dig two little bunkers for Anika and Lily to duck behind when attacking at range. Sinaya had brought her meteor hammer and rope spear today, and while both had similar range, she swapped to the rope spear for the piercing damage that had increased effectiveness versus the water shield generated by the boss. Sinaya had confidence in her ability to dodge the water attacks that Anika did not share in her own ability. She wanted to be able to duck for cover.

  Anika and Sinaya both prepared magical attacks to initiate the battle. While neither had high effectiveness against the Water monster, the spell attacks had high range and good accuracy compared to Anika’s bow or Sinaya’s rope spear. They needed to entice the creature towards their little mine field and could use the magical range to their advantage. Hawthorn stood clearly visible, as did the six members of the Capy pack. They would stay on the outside of the field, attempting to create targets for the boss to run after, hopefully causing damage as it encountered the hazardous terrain.

  Lily had also informed them that the Capy pack could now use some of her magical abilities, chief among them her Telekinetic Squeeze which did damage over time. The Capy pack had a significantly longer cooldown on the spell than Lily did, meaning they could only cast it about two times for their polymorph duration. Anika had decided they would only use it when something went wrong or in a very difficult fight, and this qualified as the latter. While the water shield decreased magic damage received, six additional damage over time effects would add up.

  Anika and Sinaya cast their spells, two jets of water and two bolts of fire leaving their outstretched hands and impacting the Dungeon Boss’s head. It turned to face the direction of the attack and saw Hawthorn, immediately charging towards him. Lily had kept one rock to use for her attacks, her favorite one, and now tried to fly it in front of the monster’s legs. With Lily’s harassment and the field of pitfalls, the boss stumbled and fell.

  Sinaya immediately moved in with her rope spear as the monster reflexively cast its full water shield ability. She managed one good hit on the boss’s backside before the water shield enveloped its body. Anika, on the other hand, did not fire her arrow with the same speed as Sinaya’s attack, and she hit the beast after the shield covered its body. The arrow penetrated the shield, but the impact slowed and thus did not bury itself as deep, nor cause as much damage as Sinaya’s attack.

  Hawthorn also charged in when the boss fell, swiping through the shield with his powerful clawed paws. He stayed in to attack until the boss kicked with his hoof, catching the side of Hawthorn’s face. He fell back, playing it safe against the most dangerous monster in the dungeon.

  The boss regained its footing and, having learned its lesson, began conjuring a ball of water from its horn rather than charging again. Hawthorn began to construct a barrier of dirt in front of him to blunt the creature’s attack while Anika prepared to duck behind her dirt bunker if the monster shot water her way. She prepared another arrow and fired just as the creature fired a burst of water at Hawthorn.

  The dirt barrier Hawthorn constructed managed to blunt the impact of the water attack, but it blasted through the soft soil, covering Hawthorn with a thick mud. He shook his body, using his magic to eject the muddy goop from his fur. The water buffalo prepared another attack, turning to Sinaya, who had just stabbed him with her rope spear.

  Anika took the opportunity to aim and fire another arrow towards the creature’s chest. Sinaya dodged the blast of water with an athletic flip to the side corresponding with the most epic Kung fu aerial attack with her rope spear Anika had ever seen. She tried not to stare, but it was a sweet move.

  Lily’s rock swooped towards the water buffalo’s legs, but the water shield prevented the blunt attack from doing any significant damage. She tried a different strategy, using her rock to attack the creature’s head. This attack proved only slightly more effective, as the boss buffalo’s skull had more defense than their normal dungeon counterparts. Ultimately, the monster barely noticed the bashing of the rock, and Lily sighed sadly.

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  “Sand in the eyes!” Anika called, a signal for Lily to switch tactics and for Hawthorn to assist. The two of them collectively began to make a cloud of dust around the creature’s head, trying to blind it or otherwise disrupt its attacks. .

  The boss shook its head, wildly firing its water blast. Anika barely dodged behind her bunker in time as a blast came her direction, the pressure of a firehose ready to cause serious damage to her exposed skin. She took a breath of relief at avoiding the attack and readied another arrow.

  Popping up from her bunker, she fired again at the creature’s chest. The boss fired another fast moving water bolt at Hawthorn, who managed to roll aside and out of the way of the poorly aimed attack. Anika felt excitement that their strategy worked, but knew she shouldn’t celebrate early. The monster could take significantly more damage than they had dealt so far, and meanwhile it still had ample opportunity to cause pain and havoc among them.

  The party managed another round of attacks against the buffalo before it did something new. An explosion of water erupted in all directions from the creature’s horn. Anika dove behind her bunker, as did Lily. Sinaya managed to kick off from a large rock near her and jump over the water attack. Anika, at this point, felt Sinaya clearly had Matrix powers.

  Unfortunately, Hawthorn and a few members of the Capy pack couldn’t react to the attack in time. It covered such a wide area, Hawthorn couldn’t dodge and instead took a strong blast of water to his side. Two of the Capy pack also received a hefty portion of the attack. The others managed to partially obscure themselves behind smaller rocks or walls. They couldn’t completely avoid the attack, but it did blunt the damage.

  The two members of the Capy pack to take the hit, both about half the size of Hawthorn, shot backwards from the pressure of the water, landing limply on the ground several meters away. Anika thought she still saw breathing, but she doubted they would return to the fight anytime soon. She worried more about Hawthorn, whose tan skin shone through new bald spots, the pressure of the water having scoured the fur away. He lay on his side, still conscious, but clearly in pain. His mind voice groaned in her head.

  She fired off another arrow and surveyed the scene. The buffalo didn’t immediately follow up with another attack, so Anika figured the large attack must have a cooldown of some kind. She told Lily and Sinaya to keep attacking as she ran over to Hawthorn, leaving her bow in her bunker.

  Anika couldn’t do much to protect him, his large size and excessive weight more than her Potency enhanced strength could pull. Maybe she should have listened to Vok after all and put more points in Potency early on. Then she could drag her companion to safety. She could erect a water shield that would blunt the impact of the damage, but she doubted she could split her attention to maintain a shield and heal him at the same time. Healing had to be the priority, as then he could move himself behind one of the bunkers and at least have partial cover while Anika finished patching him up.

  She scrunched down next to him, hoping that Sinaya, as a moving target, would attract any additional water attacks, and put her hand against his side. The healing magic of Soothing Waters responded to her quickly, and she sent the magic into his badly bruised side. She could tell the water attack had caused some internal bleeding, and she worked to repair the damage as quickly as possible. She tried to keep an eye on the boss but had trouble focusing on her healing at the same time. She just had to trust Lily and Sinaya to keep them safe.

  After 15 seconds of healing, Anika had knitted enough of the damage that the pain lessened and Hawthorn could stand and move on his own. There was still damage to repair, but safety first. Anika moved with Hawthorne quickly behind her bunker, relief washing over her that the boss hadn’t attacked them again.

  She looked over at Lily and saw that she had one eye poked out from around the bunker, her favorite rock harassing the water buffalo’s head with repeated attacks. While they didn’t do much damage, it kept the boss distracted. She must have told the capy pack to use a similar strategy to the Packmother fight, as they now ran haphazardly around the battlefield as moving targets. Sinaya looked like she had taken a water attack to the leg, a piece of her pants torn and ragged with a large, dark bruise forming over her green skin. She kept most of her weight on the uninjured leg and continued her relentless attacks despite the obvious pain.

  Anika momentarily debated what she should prioritize. Should she keep healing Hawthorn? He still had injuries, and while they caused him pain, they wouldn’t threaten his life. She didn’t want him to risk additional injury by going into melee to attack with his claws, despite the attack’s effectiveness. Sinaya’s injury could lead to her taking additional damage, but Anika also recalled that her Fire and Essence abilities combined into a kind of lifesteal magic. She healed herself by attacking, so without a life threatening injury, she wouldn’t stop attacking and would slowly heal.

  Anika assessed the boss and noticed the water shield beginning to falter. Blood mixed with the water and Anika could see signs of multiple puncture wounds on its side caused by Sinaya’s rope spear and Anika’s arrows. She decided that attacking to end the fight was the best decision.

  She stayed at the bunker with Hawthorn, firing arrows over the ledge at the boss. It attacked with its water, but more slowly and with less effectiveness, the damage to its body clearly impacting its ability to use its dangerous magic attacks. Anika took a beam of water to the arm where she didn’t duck quite fast enough, but it did far less damage than earlier in the fight, leaving behind a hefty bruise, but not breaking the skin or bone. It still hurt like crazy though.

  The fight lasted several minutes in total, but they defeated the dungeon boss with no other major injuries. The injured Capy pack members somehow lasted through the fight to provide their experience buff before dissipating into goo shortly after the battle, which thrilled Anika. Anika quickly turned to finish the healing on Hawthorn while Lily ran over to check on her new best friend, not ready to celebrate until she knew Hawthorn would recover.

  Once Anika completed the healing, Hawthorn rolled on his back and sides, scratching his newly healed, itchy skin against the grass. Lily interpreted this as play time, and shortly they rolled around together, Lily giggling in her adorable capybara laser beam way.

  Anika also finished healing Sinaya’s leg injury, though the girl’s own life steal had made decent work of repairing the damage. Once finished, Anika finally turned to the fallen boss as Leka approached.

  “Well, that was exciting! Your first dungeon boss. There are things you can improve, but you created a solid strategy and implemented it well.”

  “We beat the boss! Yay! I was so scared when Hawthorn got hurt but now he is okay and we did it!” Lily cheered excitedly as Anika joined her companions.

  “Yup, we did it! You did a good job, both of you!” Anika remembered to check for notifications, and sure enough, a blinking box in the bottom of her vision rewarded them for the hard battle.

  “And we leveled up!”

  “Yay!” Lily cheered, “I hope I got a new spell!”