A Knight to Remember

There are tomes of little known facts about Soujiro Seta, much like there are tomes about any given person in Elder Tales. If one went to chapter 42, the one about the samurai's time before the Apoc event that trapped all the Adventurers here, then one might be interested to know that he was a member of the Debauchery Tea Party. Who is this Tea Party, you ask? Are they throwing tea into the Yamato Bay? Is Debauchery Tea one of Souji's special blends? No, they were an elite clearing group that challenged the toughest content before they were all zapped back to level 1. So when Soujiro walks out across the dunes of Aincrad's second floor, he has been here before. He has been here as a member of DTP and SEA. He remembers this World Boss NPC and his raid. He finds it curious that his mentor, Gil, thought it would be a good challenge for his martial prowess. To walk the path of the Sword Saint New Game+ style.

So there he strides. It is not a Tundra to stride against, but a different kind of wasteland. Arid air sucks the moisture out of the skin and lungs, giving the trek a dry, metallic taste in the mouth. It is fortunately early to dusk. This is the time the Knight spawns, when the light has crested over the horizon and given the sands a bloody hue to it. Wind howls. Unearthly. The boss inspects as Wasteland Knight with several overlapping Health Bars. Even lower levels of the Tower put him at a risk to engage, but with a party instead of a full raid accompaniment. A perfect Hard Mode test with a smaller group.

The Knight takes a ghostly step in a slow, methodical pace. It does not seem to acknowledge the Adventurers that put their last minute preparations together on the nearby dune. Two visible undead travel alongside the armored knight: an ethereal ghost and a skeleton. Squires to his knightliness.

"We have until last light," Soujiro says as the desert breeze makes his blue hair wave about like a flag behind him, "and then he despawns." The samurai is a big dummy in big brain things. But combat? He loves combat. Its more intuitive than strategic when he does it. "Fighting conservative will trigger his version of a rage timer where he despawns." He looks over his shoulder to the friends he brought along today, "Everybody ready?"

The Aincrad Tower has always been a location Curtana has avoided. Not because he's been banned or made any denizens of the Tower mad. He's honestly just been doing his best to not step on any toes. The closest he's ever been has been the town set at the base of the Tower, which makes the Second Floor a completely new experience for the wandering knight.

Shame it's a giant desert.

Despite the setting sun, the lingering heat of the desert is still enough to bring a noticable red tint to Curtana's skin, with a mild Overheat debuff effecting him. Despite this, the knight won't willingly remove his armor out in the field.

Sipping from a small vial of a handmade potion, Curtana gives his equipment a final check before the battle begins. Kite shield, his trusty longsword and his gleaming platemail are in near perfect condition, and he has plenty of potions to pull for future healing. Nodding once to himself, the Pooka draws his longsword, ready for the battle ahead. "So we need to go all out, but not enough to put us in danger. Understood! Anyone mind if I help tank at first?" Best to make sure it's fine before he charges in against the undead knight.

Miho did not like going near the tower let alone in it. Yet Souji was able to sweet talk her into it, though there may or may not have been a promise of dinner later at some point. Either way she's here, she's clad in an orange and black combat dress of some sort. She looks to her friend for a moment nodding.

"So we got till last light and we have to go full ham? Got it."

https://i.imgur.com/bMDVtTC.jpg

"So in other words, don't overexhert yourselve to exhaustion, but don't hold back. Sounds like a challenge." Did anyone even know Kauchemar was coming? Well she's here now, the Nightmare Were Fang having recently completed some rigorous training of her own. There's a nod in agreement with Curtana's similar assessment.

She squints a little at the small progression. "Don't ignore his minions. They're likely more deceptive to balance out a knight being pretty forward in a fight, walking dead or otherwise." A bit of advice from the one that has a certain knack for spirits and spectres. "Complicating matters."

She has Grindcore Staff in one hand. She taps the end against the sandy surface of the dune. One Rock Mole pokes his head out, peers out across the sand, and then burrows back down. He's likely not the only one hiding beneath the desert, at the ready should Kauchemar need them, as sand and dry dirt is fairly easy for them to dig through. The other arm brings out her shield, with the eerie almost eyelike jewel set in the center. "Ready." And just strides right down the sand dune. Casually. Almost too casually, to those who don't know how quickly she can move when she needs to....

Schneider is a complete newbie, having joined the game just before the events, and he has zero history with it. This is, in fact, not how he intended to spend his college years. Girls and parties figured into it. Studying did too, but not so much, college being notoriously skate. How he did not intend to spend college was waiting in a desert for some dude to pop out of nowhere, and a DPS race before he popped back.

But here we are, ready to DPS check this mob into next week, and while he's training tanking now, it's someone else's problem for this fight, and Dark Schneider will defunitely dish out the DPS. When Soujiro asks if everyone's ready, he replies, "I am," and begins casting immediately, because he was told this was timed. Why is no one else starting? If it's a DPS race, he'll lead in hard and fast, chanting, "Kaizard, aruzard, kisk! Hansay Glossik! Unleash total destruction! Sage of Hades use the seven keys to open the gates of Hell!" ........

He hasn't said the final words yet, but a feeling of doom surrounds the field of battle.

Syx has been training hard, for what feels like forever. Most of that training had been inside the tower. Hell he lives inside the tower, that's where his farm is. So it wasn't that far of a trip for him to come on up here. Training never ends!

He listens to the briefing given by Soujiro, nodding his head along a few times as he talks, "So hit it as hard as I can as much as I can until it is dead. Understood." He cracks his knuckles and then steps over to get into position, "Let's do this!" But he doesn't run off ahead of the group. He's not some nerd in vanilla.

Schneider is catching way more aggro than he planned on, why .... ohcrap, his tank stance is still on, he forgot to turn it off after training. He throws up a small shield vs the general attacks coming in, but then there's this huge sword thing, and that required one of his higher end defense spells and some very quick thinking. "Gah!" So...

First thing, since he's been holding this back and letting it build, and it's starting to get past the point he can control it, he unleashes, "HELLOWEEN!"

There is an almost defeaning roar as he hurls Helloween at that sword, and the thunderous explosion of dark magic and fire fills the sky. When the firestorm and smoke clear, the sword is no longer there, and everyone's got a few more XP.

/Then/ he kills his tank stance. Because whew, this is already getting complicated!

As we were saying, Kauchemar's stride is in no rush. Full of confidence. Yet at the same time she's doing that thing where her presence is... hard to focus on. Somehow she manages to not draw much attention from the enemies with it, despite not really doing anything to hide herself. But that's okay, because soon enough she will have attention. Because this just gives her time to focus, channeling the elemental energies through her staff as she enacts a Wave Arte, while doing what she does best -- make a musical scene.

"o/~ Can you hear the sound?
Ice and rock rumble down
Until they hit the ground o/~"

Then inexplicitely she is right there in the Wasteland Knight's peripheral vision with her staff raised high.
"AVALANCHE CRESCENDO!"

She swipes her staff down.

And a cascade of frozen rocks fall from the sky upon the undead knight.

Miho has a bad feeling about the latern as the fight picks up, she's going to be rushing in pretty quickly but not for the boss. No the latern being there scratches the back of her mind making her wonder just what's up with it. She does not want to find out, no she wants to take it out before it can act. She'll pull out a Nagtinata as she leaps at it to stike, puting her mythical levels of physical strength into the strike.

"HEART SEEKER!"

The Wasteland Knight turns its skeletal head towards the party as the enthusiasm for battle mounts. A metal helmet adorns that head and the bones beyond it have seen so many battles that half of it is missing and the other is fused to the helm. Two burning blue lights help identify where eyes used to be in the factured display of anatomy. A voice whispers from beyond the grave as resolute as a desert storm. As eternal as the rocks that were reduced to sand after years of determination. "Invaders have shown themselves once more," he says as the humanoid form turns to face the party. The skeletal companion to the Knight, bearing only a rusty shield and a sword broken midway, "Sire, must we engage? A quick trip beneath the sand once more and all is well. All is well." A bit of a broken stutter enters the skeleton's chattering voice. "Stay your tongue, knave," wails the pale ghost, having faded to time so much it is barely more than the visage of a humanoid in red, sandy glow. "But I don't have a tongue. Dont have a tongue."

A sword of sand rises from the ground, as large as the knight itself. Sand falls off of it like an hourglass ticking away the time. "We defend the kingdom," the knight says with dauntless pride, "in times of prosperity. In times of ruin. This is our Oath, our code, our creed." The sword swipes broadly across the party, sending jagged sand as sharp as glass towards Syx, Schneider, and Miho with a broad wave. The dunes howl, whipping around the tatters that presents itself as a cape around the knight's neck. "Until the end of time we shall fight, men. Steel your resolve and bring glory to king and country," the boss knight says as he draws a second sword from the sand that shines against the setting dusk light. He makes use of the sand buffet against Syx to deliver an overhead slash down upon him, the crash of health between the combo being fierce.

Schneider's infernal firestorm rips through the battleground and turns the airborn sand to beads of molten glass upon the dunes. The self-same sand sword turns as red as embers before its fight with gravity is lost and it falls back down to the ground.

"P-P-Pardon!" the skeleton says as it hops and jumps over the molten landscape and makes its way over towards Schneider. "You shall not pass. Shall not pass," he says as it whirls around its broken blade in the explosion mage's general direction.

"Even a fool is given purpose," says the Ghost, raising a hand as a bolt of red-black arcane energy swirls, bearing down on Curtana and releasing in a stream of dakka dakka dakka magic missile fire. "But is still a fool," dakka.

Soujiro is right behind Curtana, staying in the FRIENDLY knight's slipstream and letting the Tank do his thing. "Curt, springboard!" the samurai yells, having both of his katanas out for this one. He waits until Kau does her Avalanche Crescendo and the knight's armor takes a heavy 'crunch' sound down upon its shoulder to offbalance him. The armor is tough, opening up for Syx to do a Captain America and Winter Soldier versus Iron Man repeat. One variation. Soujiro jumps up, tucking his knees high into his body and sliding forward to where Curtana's shield will be. He trusts him. Knows it will be there. And there it is. The knight's strength and Soujiro's legs vault him up. A little black crow in the sky with two katanas outward, hair billowing in the desert breeze. Down he comes, right at a forty five degree downward dash as both katanas crunch into the Wastland Knight. The boss reels back.

Miho's intuition serves her well as the lantern floats towards the injured knight, glowing faintly before one of the glass panes fractures and shatters from the bladed spear. There is a squeal and whine from the flame within, hurt by the attack as it tries like a captured bird to rattle off of the edge of the weapon.

The damage raining in on Syx catches him by surprise, but being who he is, he pushes forward. His health bar is dropping like a rock, and it's clear he's going to need help. With the sand spray catching him in the face, his flying attack towards the Knight is off, causing Syx to land face down in the sand a moment later.

He coughs and spits up sand as he rolls over, the Knight's blade coming down into him, as Syx again fails to dodge out of the way.

Thankfully when Soujiro arrives, Syx is able to finally free himself from the relentless assault of the knight, and get back to his feet. Still shaken, he joins in the fight, but being partially blinded by the sand, his attacks aren't hitting those weak points like he should, "I can't see a damn thing! I wasn't supposed to do blind ninja training until next week!"

As Curtana closes the distance, he takes in all the details of the skeletal Knight and the undead that follow alongside him. Certainly an imposing figure to be sure, but only a novice Adventurer completely ignore all the enemies out on the field of battle. But he already made his intent clear! Yelling out in a battlecry as he closes the distance, Curtana tries to draw all the enemy attention to himself. That didn't quite work out, as it seems Schneider is taking much of the attention!

Sliding to a stop on the sand, Curtana starts to chant under his breath to call forth a pillar of light to combat the undead. The magical spell dies on his lips as he hurriedly raises his kite shield up to block the barrage of magical missiles from the Ghost. "Yet a fool can learn from their mistakes!" Offense is good and all, but it's only good when you can still fight. Always being on the defense is the right idea.

It takes Curtana a moment to understand Soujiro's tactics since he's not used to fighting with agile allies, but he quickly understands. Turning the light mana into a barrier, the hedge knight turns around and raises his shield for the Samurai to use. With a hard push upwards to give Soujiro a little extra air, Curtana turns back to the battle on the ground against the Ghost. Already things were getting hectic.

Miho senses were on the money she's found the party healer for the boss formation, she can respect that in death duty does not end. She does however intend to win the fight here as she looks to the lantern again.

"I'll keep this thing under control here! It's not personal but your duty is over we will lay you to rest."

Something strange happens she staggers backwards. She feels something is watching her, a cold feeling. Something is feeling on her, on her mind on who she trusts the most in the party and who she does not. It's not out of malice she just doesn't know Curtana that well and it's Souji whom she's come to trust the most.

"What.. what are you doing ...?!?"

She has undead issues given the sealed undead army. She just will flip out on the lantern at this point. 1 She cries out as she will go all out as the healer needs to be put out of the fight. She's going full-out ham at the moment as she knows how important it is to get healer adds down quickly.

"FORGE'S FURY!"

Schneider had intended to DPS this fight, though he's practicing tanking, and he -is- an off tank class. A very off tank, but the intentions are there, and when he sees Syx in trouble, the boss overwheming him, he shouts, "Nooooooo!" and will dive into the fray. Nothing he has will stop the blow, but he can at least stand in front of Syx and suck up the damage in his place. "You need to get clear, man," he says. "We can take turns as the punching bag, I guess, while we beat him down." He doesn't have enough time to drop Megadeath on the Knight, that's coming next, but he can at least pour liquid FIRE on the sword coming up out of the ground neat him. It begins to melt, the liquid running down from the blade and pooling at the base until the blade is no more.

The sand dunes shift as the hilt of several swords begin to rise from the ground. The boss battle has quickly entered its next phase. Whatever those swords are for, it is rarely a good thing when weapons the Adventurers did not bring start appearing on a battle arena. Four rise faster than the others and are targetted down by Schneider, Syx, and Curtana. They break easily and are as fragile as sticks this early on.
Rat is not fragile would be the Wasteland Knight as he stands to take the punishment delt out by focus fire on him. Singular, focused intent brings his sword down towards Syx and if it was not for Schneider getting inbetween the blow, it would have been game ending as noted by the healthy chunk of HP that flies off. "Sir," says the skeleton that follows the explosion wizard around more like a pest than a threat, "I was fighting you. Fighting you." It swings not exactly a threatening addition to the Knight's group.

Curtana is locked in the ghost as the melee becomes more tightly knit. "You have been marked," says the ethereal voice, "how pitiful. A knight that inspires doubt and mistrust amongst those they fight alongside." Not that the lantern has much to say about it, fluttering about before Miho finally does it in like it was a chaotic wind chime that needed to be Office Space'd. The ghost's Cutting Words fail to get past Curtana's own resolute barrier. You dont know what you are talking about, ghost!

The health bar begins to drop steadily as the party focuses on the boss. Soujiro works in concert, a fast, hard hitting jab from the back of his blade to open up Curtana's next strike. "Ignore him, Curtana. I trust you with my life. And you," he draws up a blade to parry and spark off an incoming attack, "will be put to rest."

... Really? After all that, and dropping a load on him, no response? The Knight is more focused on the other combatants. And that...

Kauchemar's eyes narrow. Tail lashes. Nostrils flare in that way they do when equine's snort.

... And that is not good.

Both hands grip Grindcore Staff tightly as she scuffs a hoof across the sand. Flicks an ear. And then raises her voice, much more impactful and fierce this time.

"o/~ So you were six feet underneath me. I felt a pulse, I swear you moved
And digging deep deep down I recognized how much you had to lose
And if you wanna get out of here, wanna get out of here, save yourself
But you'll never get anywhere, never get anywhere, not without my help... o/~"

Then the Nightmare is a flurry of motion, unleashing her frustration in a volumenous tantrum of swinging her staff again and again at the Wasteland Knight, the infernal skull on the end making a really effective hammer for what it's worth as she strikes without releant.

"o/~ I'm alive, I'm alive when you're dead inside
I'm a slap in the face to your lullaby
Got you all tongue-tied 'cause you're living a lie my friend
I'm alive, I'm alive when you're dead inside
I'm your wake up call and you know I'm right
So make a move, let it bleed, tear your heart off your sleeve! o/~"

Syx is off his game. Maybe he's thinking too hard about trying to dodge. He opts to hold his ground as the knight closes in on him, thinking he can block it, but his health has dropped too low. If it wasn't for Schneider swooping in and blocking the blow, Syx would have been toast, "Damnit! I am sick of this guy!"

Clearly the knight thinks Syx must be a big threat with the huge focus he's had, so Syx figures he might as well give the big guy a reason to think he's a threat.

Spotting one of those swords emerging from the ground, Syx picks it up, and points at the knight with it, "Hey you no good piece of trash, you think you and your goons can bully us with your tricks? Think again!" He brings the sword down across his knee, shattering it into sparkles, before he rushes towards the knight again. It seems Syx finally found his focus, as he plants his foot and leaps through the air, swinging around to the back of the Knight and dropping an elbow down onto his head to stun him, before Syx engulfs himself in flames and drops behind the knight, hauling him onto his shoulders and then dumping him onto his head as Syx falls, flames exploding outwards from the point of impact after he hits, before Syx kips himself back up to his feet.

The Ghost's words might have found purchase if this had been any other knight to take the specter's will upon itself. But this is a man who has taken his self-imposed role more seriously than most, doing his best to live up to those ideals. Even an errant thought to his more recents battles is proof enough to this knight! Shaking his head in disappointment, Curtana tosses the broken blade he pulled from the sands aside, not bothered in the slighest. "If what I inspried so far has been doubts and mistrust, then that only means I can inspire to do more!"

Switching in with Soujiro after the fierce jab, the brown-haired Pooka swings his shield down hard into the armor of his undead counterpart, hopefully causing cracks to form. "Empty words are all they are. But that still means a lot, Soujiro!" Leaping backwards to gain some ground, Curtana takes a quick look around to take stock of the situation. That's when he finally realizes that Syx has taken several disasterous blows when he wasn't looking. Breaking free of the assault, he starts to move through the melee to start covering Syx. "Syx! Let me cover for you!"

A new sword of sand rises from the dunes. It is not unlike the one Schneider nuked from orbit previously. It is the one that got past the party. It is the one that survived. It flies out of the ground and gives Kau what she craves. Attention. How DARE the knight focus on Syx so? What kind of knight is this Wastelander to ignore a Nightmare so?! The final blows against the knight are met like someone taking a shovel to a suit of power armor as the boss stares at Kau. Two unearthly blue flames in the half-broken off skull. "Silence, bard," he says as a hand draws out towards her. No, not towards her, towards the blade that shoots like an archer's arrow right towards Kau form behind.

The Knight grabs the sword as the sand wraps around his blade, howling with heat as he spin in a grounded 360 degree blast that would make Link proud. Three full blasts of this sandstorm strike occurs before the boss relents, releasing the sand sword to the sky just like before and resuming his stance. "So you are yet resolved to see it through," he says as his foes still stand with a gaze leveled on the ire and wrath unleashed by Syx just moments before. A challenge, issued, "then spare no quarter!" For such rallying words, it causes the ghost and skeleton to NOT act as the final bar on the boss pulses at the adventurers and the light over the horizon begins to further sink into darkness.

Schneider looks left, looks right, there's danger and destruction all around, incoming attacks, and shouting and chaos. So he's in his element. Another incoming attack is met with a flaming shield, spending itself to no effect and shattering. He assumes a stance and casts, intending to blast that dang Knight.

His deep voice intones, "Deep Doomsday. To the spirits of land and air, bound by the pact, fulfill your obligation now." With a final triumphant shout, he calls out, "MEGADETH!" Hellish flames reach out, but the skeletal enemy that's been basically igores bodily interposes itself, diving in front of Schneider's spell and basically taking a direct hit. It is savagely burned for its trouble, but the Knight is left without further injury. Schneider frowns.

To be fair, she did just throw a fit over being ignored, and got what she wanted in return. In the most karmatic retributionally way possible.

When the Knight speaks to her and thrusts up his hand, Kauchemar instinctively moves her fleet footwork (hoofwork) to evade what she expected to be an attack. But not the attack she did expect, as a sword lunges at her from another direction. "Hey that's my trick!" she shouts, as she responds with bringing for her shield. Which floats in the sword's path... only to get smacked away by the sword and sent skipping across the sands. Following by a yowling from the equine bard as she's sliced nastily and repeatedly

Which in turn means more... well Adventurers don't really have open wounds but the effect is similar as now sand from the sandstorm is aggrivating them. "UGH. Anakin was right, it does get everywhere!" Painfully so.

Kauchemar stumbles back a few steps, clenching her teeth... but all that training she did defending and enduring attacks helps her to keep her feet. Though she does have to lean on her staff for support. "Fine. If you want to play with sidekicks..."

A Rock Mole pokes his head out of the ground. Then ducks back down... and a gout of flames spits out of hole instead. Followed by several more bolting from their tunnels with plumes of geothermals following. Who knows how deep they dug to actually make fire. Or maybe it's just because Fire is almost as common in a desert as Earth.

The only problem is they're not very good at aiming the gouts of elemental force, so it's really turning out to be a really big light show than actually effective.

Things are going fairly well as the battle goes on, she has to admit the enemy has been pretty clever about how they fight. It has to end though with how hard the enemy is fighting? She does not want to know what they might have to bust out if they let this fight go on any longer. She'll draw her bow a second after she puts her nagitnata away. She'll take aim with he bow line up a shot at the Knight.

"Yes it does and it's even worse when you have Scales. If it somehow gets between them it makes a black fly bite seem nice!"

She then lets the arrow fly!

"BURST SHOT!"

With the focus primarily being on Kauchemar this time, the bard's well timed respite allows Syx to get low to the ground and stay there until the sandstorm has passed.

He really is not a fan of running on sand, he never has been, but he knows he can do it when it comes down to it. He quickly crosses the distance between himself and the knight, his armored gloves glowing white hot as he starts to delivery a flurry of strikes, there's no particular aim to it, he's just drilling jab after jab after straight after body blow.

His strikes become a blur, and the heat from his gauntlets will burn into the knight himself, until he reaches his burning point. But Syx won't stop, delivering strikes until he gets forced to disengage.

Curtana raises his trusty kite shield to brace against the Knight's Sandstorm Slash, but the angle of his shield is held improperly to perfectly block these slashes. The first sends shockwaves down his arm, the second sends his arm flying upward. This leaves the third slash to clearly hit the hedge knight, sending him flying backwards with a deep red gash in his armor. Gasping from the blow, Curtana regains his footing on the sand, fighting to stay upright. Turning his head over his shoulder, he glances towards Syx and nods his head. "Whew...glad you're alright from that!" Sure, he took a nasty blow, but he can easily take a few more like that.

Curtana is real proud of the gear he wields in every battle. While his longsword is a precious ally for two years now, it's the shield he has strapped to his left hand that is his constant companion. And like the great Captain America from the comics, a shield can be used in many ways. "Yeah, but platemail is worse! I got several kilos of sand in here!" With a flick of the wrist, the shield goes flying outwards, hitting the Ghost, slamming into the Knight before flying upwards towards the Sword. Cutting right through the enchanted sand, it returns to Curtana down on the ground.

"I said I was f-f-fighting you! Fighting you." the skeleton says as he is ignored as a nuisance. He gets all up in the business of Syx and Schneider during their hot beatdowns. For a skeleton he holds up pretty well. Can't call him a meat shield without any meat on him. The health burns away and the skeletal minion pixelates into light, shattering. It isn't enough to protect his Lord from the onslaught that continues on from Miho's arrow and then the Capt America THONK THONK THONK from Knight to Sand Sword to Ghost. The sword bursts into sand, getting EVEN MORE SAND EVERYWHERE. The ghost has part of its being blasted out. That snarky ghost. He turns to the Wasteland Knight. "Ser Bleoberis, I entrust my anima to you. Use it as you see fit. For the realm," the ghost says as he floats over to the Knight. With another (sandy) gust, the red haze that was the ghost fades away. The boss gets a buff that pops on his status bar, a regeneration and damage increase.

Rage against the dying of the light.

"We end this now!" the knight says as several swords bust from the sand dunes like spikes, being grabbed by the knight as he takes each one from the ground and crashes it upon the party as if they were tsunami waves of desert sand against them. Soujiro kicks back with both katanas to guard Kau after that last assault, having to strike a keen balance between the rage attack and the fact there are precious few minutes of light remaining for the fight.

Schneider did turn his tanking stance off, yes? Crap, no, it's toggled on again, and he's in the center of a crapton of attacks. He doesn't even know where they're all coming from, he just throws up all the shield spells he has remaining for the small amount of damage it mitgates, but those are hard hits coming through!

Amid the wandering damage Schneider gets out one last attack, chanting, "Brain, Brain dead. Obey your blood oath, come forth from the land of Avalon. Fire of Gehenna, become a fiery blast and burn everything around us!" Another duck, not fast enough, more hit points come away even as he shouts, "EXODUS!" Transformed into a ball of fire, he slams into the Knight bodily. If he's going down, he's taking the knight with him. Metaphorically. He hopes monsters don't respawn like that!

Curtana restraps his shield just in time to prepare himself for the Knight's onslaught. The storm of blows rains down upon the party, and the blow meant for Curtana causes his shield arm to hang limbly. But the knight had to tire himself out from all those mighty swings, and while the Pooka might not be able to block easily anymore, he did enough. "Ending this now is right!"

Pulling his longsword free of it's sheathe, Curtana throws it underhandedly at the Knight. Bursting into enchanted flames, it melts the sand as it passes and makes bits of it into twisted glass. Alas, the dead weight on his left side throws his aim off, and it passed cleanly through the knight's legs without landing a telling blow. But he isn't alone. This was a group effort, and it's up to the group to finish the job.

The skeleton getting in his way makes Syx upset, because he had this whole thing planned, and now this Spirit Halloween decoration is getting in the way! Syx hops back, and spins around to deliver a spinning heel kick to the skeleton's skull, and knock it out of the way. If it kills it, even better!

His path cleared, he closes the distance again to the Knight proper, and jumps up, planting a foot on Curtana's shoulder to launch himself through the air, aiming to strike the Knight right in the face with one of his scaled forearms. It's a flying strike with enough force behind it to break bone, Syx just hopes it breaks this guy's bones for good.

Then there are more swords. A lot more swords. I mean, a LOT.

And then there's a Samurai intercepting them for her. If this was a less intense situation, Kauchemar would say something elaborate in gratitude. But even she knows when it's best to keep it to a curt nod of appreciation, and get back to the matter at hand.

That's when it becomes very hard to look at the Nightmare for a few moments. Like flickering in and out of view. Like trying to watch her on a staticy old fashioned TV screen as she moves through the chaos of the fight.

Until Kauchemar can be seen normally again, just off to the Knight's side. With her staff in both hands, Grindcore's skull sockets alight as it's jaw gapes open. While the moodiness is gone and Kauchemar is grinning her usual sinister smirk. "Lemme show you how to REALLY make a scene.. so you can bend over and KISS MY BASS!"

And then drop the bass does, as everything briefly goes dark around the Bard, only for a psychedelic sonic blast to erupt from the staff at the undead horror of the desert!

Miho has got the knight's attention, she's very much got the knight attenion even with several powerful abilities to protect her? Some of the knight's attacks gets on through her own defences. She is beat up but it's not enough to stop her as she gathers all the power she has left yelling as she rushes the Knight in one full powered strike!

The sword strikes come crashing down. On Miho. On Syx. Kau and Schneider. The later is such a relentless torrent that Soujiro moves his defensive stance from Kau over towards the explosion wizard. The tank stance is off from him so the samurai picks it up so that a focus can be put on the necessary damage. A single katana deflection against one of the heavy strikes puts Souji off balance. The second stike forces him to lean into with his body, soaking up a fair amount of damage even with the temporary damage shield he put up moments prior. The Knight's attack shreds through it like paper. The final blast sends Soujiro's feet deep into the sand right up to his knees. The samurai intended in doing the 'Ill finish this is one blow' or 'there is the opening strike' but instead it is a reminder that fighting on sand makes for tough melee work. Was this was Gil was trying to tell him? The Sword Arte pitters out, unable to register an enemy in melee with his feet rooted in such a way no enemies are in range. The fiery blast from Schneider has more than enough oomph to char the boss' armor. Plenty to soften the blow and burn away the natural regeneration for Kau's Rave that clocks his body upwards and right in position for a jumping strike from Syx that resounds with a deep crash putting him in a final stagger. A clear and open strike right to the core from Miho that sends the HP bar shattering below zero. The knight is stunned. Unmoving. Glitched? Not quite.

"You all fought with the ferocity of demons," the knight says, accepting defeat with a sense of grace while attempting to continue to fight. "My strength is spent beyond its limit. This day is yours," he says as his arm falls off and the metal with it. The sword with it. The other arm falls apart as cracks of white light begin to form on his body. "To what end do you commit yourself to such violence? What lust for destruction that you seek misery," he asks.

"You seemed happy," Soujiro says as he pulls himself out of the sand, "to fight again." He walks towards the knight and offers a sincere smile. "I learned a lot from your techniques today. Your prowess will carry on through us to protect lands yet ruined." The samurai looks around the desert. What was it before? Did he ever stop to wonder that? No. He is a more in-the-moment guy and not very sentimental. He looks back to the splintering skeleton. "If that brings you rest, then rest well knowing your dauntless commitment will carry on in future generations. If not," he grins sportingly, "then I'll gladly give you a rematch until you have had your fill."

"Foolish child," says the Knight in a laughing voice. "Next time I will destroy you," he says in a light hearted, jovial way. Fractured. Splintered. Shattered.

Dust. Dust scattered to the winds along with so much stray sand. "Can't wait," he tells the defeated boss' remains. The samurai turns his head back to the party, "Who is up for some tea and getting some training in?" Training life never sleeps!