Both Kaldalis and Dalgaard jerked at the sound.

“What the fuck was that?” Dalgaard whispered, panic clear in their voice.

“It’s on the stairs,” Kaldalis said, trying to remain calm. His heart crashed in his bone prison, desperate to jump out however it could. “Whatever it is, we’ll be fine. Ju-just don’t panic.”

“I’m not panicking,” Dalgaard said, clearly lying. Their hands flexed as if they wanted to draw their daggers. “I just want to know what the fuck that was, okay?”

“It’s fine. That was for my benefit more than yours,” Kaldalis said, lying right back. “We need to get out of these ruins, though. Dungeon entrance or no, I was hoping to have my line in the water before it rolled over to night, so I’m running late already.”

“It’s not full night yet. At least, not by the clock, even if the sun is down.” They made their typical dismissive gesture, but he could see a nervous shake in their hand.

“Right, well. We just have to get around whatever it is and get out,” he said. “Stay close and we’ll make it out just fine.”

Kaldalis started back down the hallway they’d come in through. Now that his darkvision circle was active, he could see that it wasn’t an empty hallway. There were doors off to both sides. A part of him wanted to keep poking around, but after that crash, he was in survival mode.

Something was hunting them, and he didn’t like being hunted.

Kaldalis also doubted there was anything to be uncovered around here worth getting in a fight in close quarters.

He made his way back to the larger room, and crouched low in the entryway, trying to be stealthy. The big room wasn’t pitch black - there was still some light leaking in from outside - but it was obviously after sunset. Most of his view of the room came from the ring of darkvision rather than the pools of light streaming in through the ceiling.

Having a clearer view made it all the more clear that this room was the smaller equivalent to the upstairs study room he saw in the big library at the bottom of the dungeon. There were places where the dark marks on the floor indicated larger tables filling spaces along one side of the room.

What drew his attention, though, was at the far end of the room. The figure standing there was covered in thin downy feathers that almost looked like fur, all of it jet black, turning the creature into no more than a fuzzy shape in the darkness. It walked on two taloned birdlike legs, though its motions were smooth as it searched the room.

The creature was only about six feet tall from the ground to the top of its head, but it was nearly fifteen feet long, most of the length contained in its long, rigid tail. It had two clawed arms, and while the arms themselves appeared tiny compared to its size, the ivory-white claws at the end of each digit were each at least four inches long. Its head was oddly shaped, both tall and long with large eyes, like a parrot if the beak were replaced with a toothy muzzle. The eyes were all black as well with no visible sclera, but set against the backdrop of the jet-black feathers, the color was more like oily charcoal grey rather than pitch black.. In its mouth, the tips of a few teeth poked out of the creature’s lips like a crocodile smile, little serrated triangles of white against the creature’s otherwise-black form.

There was a snuffling noise as it sniffed the air.

It was looking for them.

Worse than that, though, it was pacing at the head of the stairs. Even if they could sneak across the room, it was standing directly where they wanted to go. And there wasn’t any cover to let them sneak across in the first place.

“My kingdom for a cardboard box,” Kaldalis whispered.

“Maybe if we move our controller to port two?” Dalgaard suggested quietly.

Kaldalis tried not to laugh. There was no way to avoid this fight, but that didn’t mean he wanted to accelerate it with a sudden guffaw giving away their position.

“So it doesn’t look like we’re going to get out of this quick and quiet,” Kaldalis said, “one or the other, but not both. It doesn’t seem to see us, so we could just hunker down and wait for it to give up, which would be quiet, but not quick. We could charge straight ahead and fight it, but that would not be quiet.”

“We could run over and jump out the nearest window,” they suggested. “And then make a run for it from there.”

“When has running from a monster ever worked in this game?” Kaldalis asked.

“I don’t know, maybe boss monsters stay in their arena? I never tried running from the stuff in the dungeon.”

Kaldalis had a brief vision of a giant silverfish monster smashing its way through the underground ruins, chasing him.

“No, that doesn’t work,” Kaldalis said. “Trust me. And this might not even be a boss monster. I’m not thinking this is going to be scary, I just expect it to be annoying.”

“Oh. If you’re not afraid of it, then we should probably just fight it. I thought we were afraid of it for some reason.”

“Well, it’ll waste a bunch of time, and if it’s noisy we might attract other enemies. But if it can’t be avoided, it can’t be avoided.”

“Whenever you’re ready, then,” Dalgaard said, readying their daggers.

Kaldalis called his spear from his equipment page to his hands. He considered how he wanted to approach the beast. He didn’t know what it was capable of. The nearest comparison he could make was to a smaller irritator, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. It could very well be just a feathered tooth-monster with some unknown debuff on its attacks. But it could also have some more threatening tricks, like a breath attack or other AoE effect. It might even fling itself through the air at his neck with a chew-toy squeak. He had to be careful. Even if he wasn’t afraid of it, he wasn’t going to approach it like some moron with a sword stomping towards his foe with his fragile throat exposed.

“Just stay back until I get it turned around,” Kaldalis said. “I’ll turn it away from you so that you can approach without getting caught by any cone attacks or whatever else it might have.”

“Understood,” Dalgaard said, “good strategy.”

“I’m probably way overthinking this. But I’d rather overthink than underthink. You ready?”

“Fire at will,” Dalgaard said with a grin.

“How do you know its name is Will?”

“Fuckin’ nerd.” Dalgaard punched him in the arm. The hilt of their dagger clanked against Kaldalis’s armor, and the feathered monster’s head snapped towards the sound instantly. It opened its jaws - showing off dozens of ivory-white fangs - and made a catlike hissing sound. The sound trailed off upwards, making it sound like a question.

“I know I was about to sprint out there and draw its attention anyway,” Kaldalis said quickly, “but everything that goes wrong from here on is your fault. Just so you know.”

With that, he charged.

As soon as he entered the room, the beast straightened up and oriented on him, its big dark eyes regarding him with a keenness that looked more human than animal.

It was actually kind of terrifying.

The creature rearing up and hissing at him again didn’t help with that.

Determined not to overthink this more than he already had, he broke into a run across the room, wordlessly yelling to draw attention to himself to keep it from noticing Dalgaard behind him. He didn’t hear any footsteps behind him, so he assumed they were waiting all the way back there for him to start the fight instead of hanging back just a few feet.

It was the smart way to handle it.

Being right behind would only protect them from taking on the first regular sweep of the claws or fangs. Staying hidden until the fight was joined would protect them from most AoEs, even if the monster suddenly blasted a big attack like the Syncoresi howl or the Malum dark blast.

Kaldalis led with the tip of his spear. He charged heedlessly over the uneven rubble of the ruins, and his tail flicked back and forth, keeping his balance under control. The creature crouched down and made a little hop to the left before lunging to meet his charge, trying to attack from the side rather than head-on with his spear. Sweeping the head of his weapon across, he scored a slashing strike on the monster’s flank as he ducked down, letting the giant talons on its feet sail over his head rather than sinking into his shoulders.

As soon as the blow struck, he came to a terrifying and sobering realization. The attack did only thirteen physical damage and four wind damage.

Shit.

He hadn’t overthought this at all.

If anything, despite all his caution he had still managed to underthink.

This was no wandering monster.

This was a boss mob.

And they were out here with zero DPS.