Eli was so happy with his victory that he did a fist pump in excitement, but he knew it couldn’t be that easy. Just as his fist pump ended, the flame on the small brazier jumped to a different one and the wind direction changed. The mountain rumbled again and a new goat showed up, this one was identical but it wasn’t hurt like the last one. The shadow eel came up from the mountain and went inside the goat, it looked like they were going to have to do that nine times. Eli was low on magic, Cody’s arm was broken, Lucy was not recovering from the fear and didn’t seem to be moving. Beau had just shaken off the last fear and was now in his full molten rock armor, and Bethany was standing but looked shaky.
She looked at Eli as if asking him if she could take a turn, he nodded and she faced back at the goat. Eli sat and meditated trying to recover some magic while Bethany gave it her best, which turned out to be plenty. Bethany ran at the goat, which saw her and started towards her, just before her spear would have hit the goats horns, she dropped to the ground. Holding her spear firmly under her right arm she used her left to point it up just as the goat went over her head. Her spear stuck into its chest and their momentum plunged it further in spraying her with blood and making some very stomach turning crunching and squelching noises. While the goat was bleeding out, the eel absorbed its essence and let out another fear inducing scream, this time with its head right over Bethany and facing down on her.
The scream sound echoed off the solid stone floor and her eyes rolled up into her head and she passed out, she came to very quickly and was twitching as the eel phased into the mountain and another rumble was heard as the black flames switched to another brazier and the wind changed again. This time, just as the eel was going into the goat, Beau was already in charge and punched it square in the side of the head. The goat had a slight moment of disorientation when the eel phased into it and Beau had taken advantage of it. His punch had crushed and melted the side of its face, it wasn’t dead but it was stumbling as it tried to charge with its horns lowered and just fell over, trashing and rolling on the ground until it just fell off the side.
They were making big hits, killing the goats quickly but it was costing them. Bethany was deaf and couldn’t seem to catch her balance like she was drunk, probably from inner ear damage, Beau seemed ok but from the way he was moving his hand was damaged. Eli remembered that he was ambidextrous when it came to fighting so at least he could do that one more time. However this time, the rumbling of a large goat running up the mountain was stronger, this goat was bigger than the previous ones, and when it reached the top, two shadow eels phased up from the mountain and into the goat. There were also two braziers lit so the wind was coming from 2 directions and they combined made standing a challenge, except for Beau, since he was so heavy.
Everyone still in the fight was looking at each other trying to figure out what to do next, between the wind and damaged hearing no one could really hear anything the others said so Eli just pointed to himself and moved to stand in the middle of the flattened mountain top. The goat was ready for a charge but instead, he turned to face the same direction as the wind and ran in the direction the combined winds were blowing. When he reached the edge he jumped, the goat, thinking that he had just ran away turned to face Beau, but just as Eli fell below the view off the edge, he blinked to be between the goat and the direction the wind was coming from. It pushed him right into the goat and he struck it with a smash on its side knocking it clear off the mountain in a cartoonish straight line until they heard it hit the wall of the floor with a loud thud.
There was a pause in anything happening, so they all let out a breath, but then they heard the rumble of another goat, but this time it was two of the larger ones. Four eels came up and two went into each of the goats as well as four braziers lighting up and the wind blowing onto them from four directions. This was tricky because the wind would change directions depending on where you were on the mountain top. At first the goats just stood on opposite sides of the flat battle area, just looking around. Then all four eels stuck their heads out of the goats mouths and as one let loose a fear inducing scream that even sent Eli to a knee. Beau was mostly protected inside his molten rock armor, and with Bethany having no hearing left, she was only minimally affected by the vibrations.
The three of them looked at each other and nodded, Eli ran after one of them holding the heaviest cudgel he could conjure with his current amount of magic so that he wouldn’t get blown away. Bethany went over to Beau and threw what looked like a harpoon into his leg. There was a rope attached to it and she tied the other end around her waist so she wouldn’t just fly off with the wind. Beau started walking towards the other goat that Eli wasn’t squaring off with, he wasn’t happy about having a harpoon in his leg but he did see why it was there so he would go along with it for now. The goat he was facing charged at him, horns lowered, it was stronger and heavier than the other ones and he wasn’t sure he could take a hit from it.
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Surprisingly Bethany was running away, using the wind to carry her, but then the rope went taught and all that momentum swung her back toward the goat. Realizing what she was doing, Beau swung his leg in an exaggerated step to accelerate her even further, which may have turned out to be a mistake, since she clearly could not control how she was going to hit the goat now. As her arc was completing, she managed to control herself a little and got her spear in place just as she smashed into the side of its neck. The spear went all the way through and out the other side, but she had braced the butt of her spear on her side and she impacted the goat with such force that the butt of the spear punched right through her side just below the ribs.
The goat was freaking out and spazming around as its momentum kept it going towards Beau, luckily he was able to jump out of the way in time. However, Bethany was still pinned to the goats neck like a kabob, and as it started flailing towards the edge, Beau saw it coming and started running the other direction. He was adding more stone to his armor to make himself heavier as he went and just as the goat fell off the side the rope went taught and ripped her off her spear. Blood sprayed from her wound as she fell to the ground right next to the edge, Beau pulled her back from the edge but then was sensing how close he was to running out of magic. He wrapped the rope around his forearm and sunk his hands into the stone beneath him, with his remaining magic he managed to get stone to wrap around Lucy and Cody like a belt, so they wouldn’t get blown off.
Eli was having trouble with his heavy cudgel, it was enough to keep him from knocking him off but now it was so heavy that he didn't weigh enough to really get enough weight behind it to get a good swing in. He traded glazing hits with his goat, but he wasn’t getting anywhere with it. He knew he should do anything risky so he just kept his distracted until the other one was defeated, but since it took everything they had, he wasn’t going to get any help. There was a move he was wanting to try that might work here but it was a shot in the dark, however seeing as he had no other ideas, he was going to try it anyways.
After their next exchange, he maneuvered his cudgel behind him and held it over his shoulder with both hands. He set his center of gravity up so that he could hopefully use his shoulder as a fulcrum in order to swing it straight overhead and come smashing down on the goats head. The goat saw this and kept charging, but right as he tried to get the swing in the goat sped up hoping to hit him before the cudgel made it over Eli’s head. However, instead of swinging it, he knelt down so his head was at the same level as the goats head and blinked his cudgel to be in front of him. The cudgel handle smashed into the goats head causing its momentum to launch it over Eli’s head like a polevaulter. The heavy version of his cudgel had a square head, which when the goat moved over him it moved the head which proceeded to crush his foot.
Ignoring the pain, he looked around and everyone was out of the fight, but safe and alive. The goat went flying over the edge and fell down the mountain side with as much dignity as a polevaulting goat could manage. After it crashed to the bottom of the mountain top area, the last of the braziers went out and a hole opened near where the larger brazier had been with a spiral staircase leading down. Not focusing on that, Eli gathered each person near the center before he also laid down and took a break. Fighting the goats hadn’t been the hard part, just as with the first floor of this dungeon, fighting the monsters and boss while also fighting the environment was what made this difficult. In this instance, the wind threatening to blow him off the mountain had been particularly exhausting, watching his balance, weight shifting and how each wind change affected it.
Long story short, Eli was tired, the boss fight had not taken long but the level of mental energy it took for him to keep himself in fighting shape was astounding. He had to use hard mental focus and the balanced intuition from his weapon skill to keep the backlash from his attacks from throwing him off the mountain to his probable death. Laying down with the others, he decided that this wasn’t a bad place for a nap and let himself relax, he didn’t let his mind drift all the way to sleep, but kept just aware enough to sense a change in his friends. The half-awake trance he was in was halted when he heard a scream, Eli jumped to his feet and conjured his cudgel while still half asleep. In his addled, suddenly fully awake mind, he noticed that his conjured weapon that took almost any shape he wished, was currently in the shape of a paddle, a spanking paddle.
Lucy was the one who had screamed and with no enemies in sight, Eli set down his weapon and ran over to her. She was shaking and covered in sweat, maybe the eel fear noise had gotten to her even while she was unconscious, he thought while scratching his chin and kneeling next to her holding her hand. The others started stirring, most of their injuries were still healing but they could all stand and mostly walk or limp. Bethany picked up the paddle/conjured cudgel and looked at Eli with raised eyebrows, knowing that no matter what he did, she would tease him for this, he just winked at the and snapped his fingers dismissing the weapon.
