Tower of Souls

"What the fuck is our dogshit luck?" Eron hissed as the pair moved well back from the boss room.

Clearing the floor of regular monsters hadn't been a problem for the pair; Most of the enemies encountered were miners, with groups ranging in number from two to four and only occasionally accompanied by a Shaman- and, being a level up on the monsters, even the Shamans were less of a challenge... Except for the room where they had found four Shamans together; That room had been a painful reminder not to get over confident, as Eron had gone down in the fight, leaving Cam alone to fight the last Shaman...

At least he had gotten lucky, as that particular Shaman only had the Minor Accident Ability, so it was actually an easy fight to win. Still, he had been even more cautious moving forward after that.

But as for their luck...

"We cleared the entire Floor... and we're still 125 XP short of leveling." Cam groaned. Glancing down at his arms, he grimaced at the ugly, furred bracers wrapped around them- the only other drop they had gotten so far... and not a very good one.

Crude Hide Bracers

Tower Value=1

Armor = 1

Having armor was useful, there was no doubt about it... But armor only provided protection to the parts of the body it actually covered... So, while not the worst location, only his arms had any protection at all... And the measly 1 armor barely offered any protection at all. Added on to that was the fact that the most common Ability among the Kobold Shamans... was Minor Accident, with Fan the Flames being next...

And they hadn't found a single other Shaman with Stone Skin.

"Man, if I had known earlier..."

Cam nodded, agreeing with his clone; While Fan the Flames was a good Ability, they had really only had to use it during the 'Shaman fight', as they dubbed it, as most of the other fights didn't require anything more than their weapons- and they wanted to conserve mana for emergencies... Emergencies like that exact 'Shaman fight'... And, if he had somehow known, he would have grabbed Stone Skin first.

"No point regretting it; What's done is done." Cam sighed, as that wasn't even the worst of it- the worst of it being the Boss ahead of them.

Rather, Bosses. Plural.

"A triple Boss, though? Seriously, there must be a hidden Luck Stat- and ours sucks." Eron grumbled, clearly frustrated- not that Cam blamed his clone, as he obviously felt the same.

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Bosses varied from Floor to Floor; Some Floors would have a single Boss right at the end, some would have multiple weaker Bosses scattered throughout with a stronger Boss at the end- commonly called Mini Bosses-, and some... some, like the Floor they were on, would have a single Boss room at the end, but with two or even three Bosses in it.

While each of the three Bosses was weaker than a normal Boss, each would be stronger than the regular enemies... And, of course, they would work together to try to kill their attackers.

"Don't forget, we're still a level up on them." Cam tried to reassure his clone- and himself-, even if it sounded a bit hollow; Everyone knew that the difficulty of Boss monsters was tougher, closer to normal monsters a level higher- so even with them being slightly weaker than a normal Boss, this fight was going to be similar to them fighting a group of enemies of their level.

"So it's basically an even fight." Eron snorted, his grin slowly returning. "Just looking at them, I bet each of them corresponds to the different shamans: the one out front is probably a tank with either Stone Skin or Iron Skin, and the two casters in the back probably have Fan the Flames or Fireball- or something similar..."

"And the other has Minor Accident or Lesser Accident- so, basically not much of a threat, just an annoyance." Cam nodded, working through it in his head. "Standard practice for a fight like that would be the party's tank pulling the Kobold tank to the side, letting the damage dealers focus down the fire Shaman before switching to the other-"

"And finishing the tank mob last." Eron nodded along. "Though figuring out which caster is which would be a problem- at least until they actually cast, that is."

"But we're not exactly a standard party using standard practices."

Cam rolled his eyes, the thought flitting through his mind that his clone was getting snarkier the longer he was around- which, thinking about it, was kind of a reflection of himself, even if he seemed to always play the straight man to his clone's antics. "So we break it down in our own way: I grab the tank, you rush the casters."

"You should probably take the greatsword, then; Better to keep the tank at a distance so it doesn't bop you with its club- I can just tackle the fire caster and go stabby stabby with the dagger..."

"You're going to take a beating again." Cam pointed out; Even though that was how most of their fights went, he sympathized with his clone- he still got his clone's memories when subsuming him, and knew that it wasn't pleasant... Effective, yes, but still painful.

"Yeah, considering how little that really bothers us, we must be seriously fucked up in the head." Eron laughed as they swapped weapons. "I'm going to hit the casters with fire as soon as I get close; You should probably hold yours until I fully get their attention."

"Yeah, we don't want them thinking I'm the bigger threat and trying to focus me first." Cam agreed, having already had that thought. "Ok. We go in together, I charge the tank while you bypass us for the casters-"

"And we knock out this Floor while praying for good loot!" Eron finished for him, hefting the dagger in his hand. "We've got this- and, hey, we'll definitely level again after this, right?"

"Bosses are usually worth more XP, so... Yeah, probably." Cam shouldered the greatsword, mentally preparing himself for the fight ahead- aside from maybe their very first fight, this was definitely going to be the toughest... which only made sense, seeing as it was the Boss of the Floor.

Glancing at the matching grin on his clone's face, he added one more unnecessary sentence- they both already knew, and their hopes were definitely high... "Bosses also have a higher chance of dropping equipment- and the equipment they drop is usually better than the stuff from the trash mobs!"

"Let's go get some loot!" Eron nearly cheered as the pair started forward at the same time, their steps perfectly in sync.