“So?” Sasha asked as everyone surrounded Daniel, who had just returned from scouting out the boss’ chamber. They’d finally made their way there. Liliana wasn’t too sure of how many days it had taken, but she knew they’d slept three times since coming into the dungeon, so everyone’s best guess was four days so far.

Getting out of the dungeon would be just as troublesome as the creatures would’ve re-spawned by then. Faster than wild creatures, because of the dungeon boosting their spawn rate. A little over a week in a dungeon wasn’t far off their estimated time for it, though it would’ve been less had Liliana not Ranked up during it. She’d grounded her team during that time, however, she’d heard that they’d gone out in smaller groups to take on a few patrols of goblins during her Rank up, so it hadn’t been a total waste. She lost out on the experience during that time though, and it still itched her.

“The chamber is large, with a lot of smaller caves off of it like homes. There seems to be a rudimentary sort of town set up in there. I saw around thirty goblins running around. Half that in hobgoblins patrolling the area. The boss seems to be some kind of high level Hobgoblin chieftain of some sort. It’s level 80, not named thankfully. The other hobgoblins are between 65 and 75. Goblins are between 60 and 70.” Daniel briefed them all on the room, drawing out a map that showed them the layout of the chamber.

He noted down where he’d seen guards and the largest gathering of goblins, along with where the boss was. Which was predictably in the back behind the other mobs. Everyone started tossing around strategy ideas. This was the first time they’d really needed to think through a full strategy for an encounter. Their typical team format worked for the patrols and groups they met, but there were far too many mobs in the boss room for them to try that now.

“Archers?” Liliana asked, and Daniel nodded, pointing out a few hobgoblin positions and she frowned.

“Alistair, do you have a barrier or shielding skill that will extend to someone else?” Liliana asked, turning to her stepbrother.

“Yea, I’ve got two that would work, [Bulwark] and [All Eyes On Me]. [Bulwark] is a shield that will extend to five feet around me, [All Eyes On Me] forces projectiles to hit me,” Alistair explained and Liliana nodded. Everyone else was still talking about different strategies, while Liliana’s own mind was piecing together different ideas.

While the dungeon differed from her memories, the boss encounter so far was the same. The Hobgoblin boss would have AOE buffing skills it used to buff its minions. Combined with their overwhelming numbers, it made the entire encounter rather dangerous. Liliana had played the dungeon several ways in her play throughs. One had been stealth killing the chieftain, and then sneaking back out. It had gotten her the rewards for clearing the dungeon as only the boss was required in the game. However, that wouldn’t work here, where everyone wanted the experience. Not just the completion. It would be a good idea to get the boss out of the way as soon as possible, but she wasn’t sure Emyr or Daniel could one hit KO the boss. In that instance, she’d ran through side quests for a while to over-level herself for the dungeon.

A different way she’d cleared it had been just brute forcing it, but again not viable this time. When it was a game, she could afford to make stupid choices like that, because she could respawn. This life, as much as it resembled the game, did not give her the option to respawn when she died. Nor for any of her team to respawn.

Another memory hit her, and she smiled. That might work. She’d cleared the dungeon playing as Alistair, having grabbed Emyr for her party early that time. She’d grabbed the rooms aggro and had ordered Emyr to focus his attacks on the chieftain. With the chieftain distracted by keeping himself alive, he hadn’t been able to buff the mobs as much, and she’d been able to get through the miniature army and finish the boss after Emyr had whittled him down.

“Guys,” Liliana called out, frowning when no one but Emyr and Alistair seemed to notice she’d spoken.

“Lelantos,” Liliana called, and the tiger roared at her command, though not quite as loudly as he could’ve. It grabbed the group’s attention, several pain and irritation laden eyes turned to her.

“I have an idea,” Liliana stated primly. “Me and Alistair will ride Lelantos into the room. Alistair will keep the arrows and spells off of me and when we’ve got the aggro of the room, I’ll cast [Radiant Revelry]. I’ll command the mobs to attack each other like before. Once that’s done, Alistair will get off Lelantos and Charles, Sam, and Sasha will come in and begin killing any mobs not under my control, then focus on the ones under my control. While we’re doing that, Daniel and Emyr will sneak past and focus on the boss and keep him off the rest of us. We should be able to handle the mobs quickly enough to provide backup to Daniel and Emyr and finish the boss. Eric will stay back and provide healing for anyone who needs it,” Liliana finished. She waited while everyone processed her plan. She was rather proud of it, and that she’d communicated it without revealing that she had knowledge she shouldn’t.

“And what if Emyr and Daniel can’t handle the boss on their own? Bosses are typically pretty strong. They need entire teams to tackle them,” Alistair spoke up, concern clear on his face as his eyes flickered to his friend.

“From what I’ve read and heard about dungeons, the way boss encounters are set up is very telling about what kind of boss they are. This one seems like the kind that is physically weak, which is why there are so many defenders in there. More than likely, he’s a caster or some sort of support,” Liliana explained carefully. She had read a bit on dungeons, but most of this was coming from her time on earth and how she remembered the dungeons being set up in the game.

If one could pay attention to the setup of the dungeon, they could usually figure out the boss’s type and form a strategy without even facing the boss. If the boss was a physically strong boss, there would be maybe a handful of other hobgoblins in the room or none at all if they’d gotten the evolved form of a hobgoblin, a bugbear. Pure damage dealing mages typically had a few strong defenders or traps of some kind. There were, of course, exceptions such as physically powerful bosses with the ability to buff allies of theirs who would have more than the normal amount of additional mobs. Mage bosses that would then summon a large amount of defenders to attack while preparing a nuclear spell of some kind.

This boss could technically be considered one of those, but Liliana didn’t personally classify him as such. When he was left with no minions to buff, he would use his buffing spells on himself instead. Which would then turn it from a caster fight to a melee, but Liliana wasn’t too concerned. With their team, they should be able to clear the mobs out and provide backup before the boss got to that point.

“Liliana here isn’t wrong about that,” Sasha commented, getting nods from the other guards as they seriously considered her plan. Liliana shot the woman a grateful look for her support. She was also rather warmed by Sasha’s use of her real name, rather than her title. She, and the other guards, had begun using it after the mimic fight, saying she was ‘one of them’ for putting herself in so much direct danger. It felt nice to be included like that.

“What if Eric went with Daniel and Lord Emyr? His [Stealth] isn’t bad and it would keep him away from most of the mobs if they got past us,” Sam added in and Eric made a rather unpleased face at the idea.

Liliana could sympathize from what she’d seen: the man had almost no offensive abilities. She wasn’t sure if it was because of his class or a personal choice. Some classes could impose restrictions like that, though her memory of healing classes was nonexistent. She had despised playing a healer in any game and had never taken the class herself, nor had any interest in learning about it. However, she knew there were offensive classes that would restrict a player from having healing skills, for example, and she could imagine it was the same for some healer classes.

“Yea but if the boss has some way of calling his buddies back, then he just has Lord Emyr and Daniel to protect him,” Charles spoke up and the team hummed, everyone looking at the healer trying to figure out where to put their both incredibly useful and inconvenient party member.

“We could strap him to Alistair's back?” Liliana offered with a smirk and that got a round of laughter from the group, though the death glare she received from Eric made her hesitant to eat dinner that night.

“We could put him on Lelantos with Liliana again?” Sasha wondered and Liliana hummed. They’d done that a couple times when they got a larger than a normal group of goblins or a patrol. It had been useful to keep the healer out of danger while giving him the mobility to move around the battlefield with two defenders with him.

“He’d have to do it after we’re in the room, when I cast [Radiant Revelry],” Liliana informed them. With the archers in the room, he wouldn’t be safe before then.

“Alright, we’ll do it that way then,” Sasha decided with nods from the rest of the guards. Liliana turned to Emyr first. The other boy met her gaze and nodded silently, accepting the plan. Liliana turned to Alistair, who was scowling at his feet.

“I guess the plan isn’t completely awful,” Alistair allowed, and Liliana grinned. Everyone got up, checking over their equipment one last time and stretching out.

“Ready?” Liliana asked Lelantos, scratching behind his ears. The tiger chuffed, and she got a feeling of eagerness over the bond. He was excited to fight, he always was. Even if the things they fought rarely gave him any experience, the tiger still enjoyed the thrill of battle.

Liliana climbed into the saddle, Alistair reluctantly climbing behind her. He fiddled with his hands a moment before grabbing onto the back of the saddle, trying to avoid touching her. Liliana was thankful. While this was her plan and her relationship with her stepbrother had improved over the months, she was also rather uncomfortable. However, this was the best plan that would see them all out of this encounter alive.

Eric walked around, giving their team various buffs. Liliana shuddered as the feeling of someone else’s magic settled over her. At the same time she felt a new strength settle on her and, checking her stats, she saw that he’d buffed her Strength, Intelligence and Stamina. She summoned her weapon and held it at her side as she looked around.

“Ready?” she asked, her heart thudding in her chest, picking up as anticipation filled her. Adrenaline was already dripping into her blood and the siren’s call of battle was singing to her.

“Ready,” Sasha answered, prompting a round of ready calls from the others.

Liliana nodded and turned forward. With a grin, she pushed Lelantos forward, and the tiger took off into as fast a lope as he could manage in the twisting depths of the dungeon. While the dungeon was large, far larger than she thought any cave system had a right to be, because of the dungeon itself changing the surroundings. It had quite a lot of sharp turns and twisting paths that made dead on sprints dangerous.

Behind her, she could hear Alistair grumbling and cursing under his breath about the ride. From what Charles had told her after the mimic fight, riding on Lelantos differed from riding on a horse, and while a [Riding] skill ensured someone would stay on, it didn’t change the fact that it felt distinctly off to someone used to horses.

Lelantos picked up speed when they got to the long stretch right before the boss’ chamber. Liliana gripped her naginata tightly as she readied her skill. It was unnecessary since it had no cast time, but it felt better to hold the skill in her mind, ready to activate when she pulled the trigger.

The pair on the tiger burst into the boss chamber and Liliana looked around for a moment, taken off guard by how much it looked like the game. Almost stone for stone. The details were the same, and for a few seconds as Lelantos plowed towards the middle, Liliana felt herself return to her past life.

The feeling that this was all just a game tried to intrude upon her mind, but memories of bloody bodies piled around her, the scent of copper and human waste, tickled her nose as memories hit her. Memories of screams for mercy, and screams of hate filled her head. Memories from the last time she’d made the mistake of thinking this was a game. With a supreme force of will, Liliana banished her memories of playing this dungeon, of sitting in her slightly too cold hospital room as the machines around her sang a discordant song of her own dwindling health.

It’s not a game. This is my life now. I can’t make the mistake of pretending it’s just a game again, Liliana reminded herself as Lelantos came to a stop. Around them was a horde of goblins, all of them thrown off by the sudden appearance of a massive tiger in their midst. A light covered Liliana and she felt unfamiliar magic. She almost turned to look for the attacker when she realized it was Alistair casting his [Bulwark] skill.

As the goblins and hobgoblins shook themselves from their shock, they charged at the mounted pair, several hobgoblins pulling out bows and aiming arrows at them. Liliana waited until she felt the majority of the company of monsters was close enough before she activated her skill.

[Radiant Revelry] bathed the dimly lit chamber in blinding rays of magic enhanced light. Shadows were banished as the goblins fell prey to her skill, eyes going vacant, and their charge stopped in its tracks. The light didn’t quite reach all the hobgoblins standing on the edges of the chamber, and arrows still peppered the shield of light Alistair had thrown around them. Already the boy was sliding off Lelantos, summoning his weapons as he took up his spot next to the tiger.

“Attack your brethren,” Liliana ordered the goblins and hobgoblins under her thrall. She could feel a distinctive strain on her mind at the order. She had never controlled so many with the skill, she’d only used it once before. A headache was blossoming behind her eyes as the goblins let out screeches and screams, turning on their friends and family as they tore them apart at her order. Liliana slid off Lelantos and sent the tiger back to pick up Eric, signaling her teammates that it was time for them to enter the boss room.