We hadn’t actually reached the nest yet. We got very close, but there was one big defensive chamber left before we’d get there. There weren’t a lot of Krutnik, but the few that were crawling around were all Juvenile or special ones and this time they had plenty of space to manoeuvre.

I checked our quest. It changed a few details and gained a title and two more paragraphs, which further defined the requirements to complete it.

Something’s a-rumbling beneath!

A nameless village, overlooked by the protecting gaze of the governor! A mysterious threat from beneath the earth, bubbling its way to the surface! Lots of cute children, threatened by famine! Something is awry here, and this is but the tip of the iceberg. Can you save the village?

More importantly, can you save the town and about a hundred more villages and hamlets? As you investigated the mysterious potato-thieves that were bothering a pregnant orc lady and her buffoon of a husband, you stumbled upon a much greater threat than you first anticipated! A nest of Krutnik, just underneath the surface! They might lie in wait for years, or they could come out tomorrow! Who can tell? Anyone who knows that this level only exists for another week, obviously, but let’s pretend that the time schedule is a mystery.

Stop the Krutnik from reaching critical mass and pouring out to exterminate everyone in a 50km radius, and you’ll save the day! I’m sure people will believe you when you tell them what you did for them, underground where no one could see you fighting enemies they didn’t even know were there.

Completing this quest will yield a Silver Quest Box!

Bonus objective: Kill Krutnik on and directly below Tolley’s land (max. 10m below surface) to extort the poor man for 2 gold pieces per kill! You’ll only be taking feeding money directly out of his young daughter’s mouth, and she can use a harsher diet. By the way, dragging Krutnik onto his land before killing them also counts! There’s no limit to how much you can put Tolley in debt! Currently 10 kills.

We all immediately spotted that the quest didn’t require us to defeat their queen or something like that, just to prevent them from reaching ‘critical mass’. As far as the hints went that quests and boss battles had to complete them easier, this one was fairly easy to figure out. Destroy their hatcheries, kill enough of them or even just collapse the tunnels so they wouldn’t be burrowing out in time, and we’d complete the quest.

It wouldn’t be that easy, obviously, but at least we didn’t have to defeat the hive queen. Which would probably be a Borough Boss given the size of this nest and the number of Krutnik crawling about. Also, the whole having a Neighbourhood Boss as a guard issue.

We didn’t know whether it was actually a Neighbourhood Boss, but anyone who played video games knew that a large empty room you had to go through to advance the plot was going to be a boss battle. Borant obviously didn’t care for the empty part and sprinkled some Reavers to fill in the emptiness, but there weren’t enough of them to make it not look like a Boss Room.

And if that wasn’t enough of a hint, the literal wall of dead Krutnik, bones, logs and anything else pointy that these bugs could find would’ve clued in even the people that never played videogames. The wall was about three times as tall as me and occupying about a third of the room, blocking off the large entrance to the hive on the other side.

“The boss is hiding on the other side of the wall. It didn’t spot me when I snuck in before, but I doubt that anything short of a two-dimensional shadow in pitch black darkness will evade its senses.” Ben said. “Long limbs, sharp claws and lithe enough that it will probably be very fast.”

“And it’s not a Weaver?” Elise asked.

“Nope. Same tiresome gimmick, though.” Ben said.

I wondered which word was left, but nothing came to mind quickly. I shrugged. “But their level is Neighbourhood Boss rather than Borough, right? Let’s just snipe the few Krutnik quickly and then fight the damned thing.”

Thomas nodded and fired several upcasted Magic Missiles into the room.

The projectiles caught the large Krutnik unaware and impacted on the flat surfaces of their carapace. Despite being magic, the missiles were reflected when they hit the chitin on a curve and were dispersed over a larger area, reducing the damage to scratch wounds. The Juveniles even seemed to block or move in a way to catch the missiles that way, making the spell kind of worthless most of the time. But when it made an impact, it dealt more damage than his other spells Frost Bolt and Scorching Ray. They weren’t dispersed making them his go-to once the Krutnik started to dodge, but the damage was mostly blunted by the chitin.

I ran forward after the fifth Magic Missile flew into the room, the Krutnik no longer surprised and taking massive damage. Ben was to my right and Alexa flew just behind me, while Elise quickly rose into the air.

The first Reaver was still in the process of turning towards me when I kicked its leg and caused it to stagger. Ben and I quickly stabbed into it, while Alexa pierced her little rapier through its eye with all of her weight and momentum behind it. The eye barely budged, but she just barely managed to pierce through and make it bleed. Still, between the three of us we squashed the bug in mere seconds.

A magic missile took out a Feaver in one shot before it could reach us, and with almost contemptuous ease I stepped on a Leaver bravely trying to surprise attack me.

Elise slammed down on two Reavers just to our left, this time opting to use her falling momentum to swing wide and strike the both of them with a twirl. The arc of lightning trailing behind her bat once again did little to the carapace, but smoke trailed from a wound where Thomas broke the chitin. It was stunned by the electrocution, and Elise hammered the other to death before it could recover. Having a big bludgeoning weapon was a lot more effective against these plated foes than stabbing them like Ben and I were doing.

While she did that, we already took down another. Alexa narrowly dodged rows of sharp teeth as she tried to charge her rapier into the next Krutnik’s eye, only to find it more eager to eat her whole instead. Ben was on it not a moment later, wrapping his legs around its neck and stabbing it in the eye before it could bite Alexa out of the air.

I ran towards it to help Ben before the nearby Cleaver could reach them, and-

Boss battle!

You have discovered the lair of a Neighbourhood Boss! Put your game faces on ladies and gentlemen! Aaaand Here. We. Go!

The world froze, and I could only move my eyes slowly. They immediately began to protest as I moved them as far as I could to the creature that emerged from behind the wall of corpses, the long-limbed beetle-like bug still only barely in my peripheral. Fortunately, the AI didn’t need us to be looking at a Boss to read us their description.

Krutnik Beaver!

Level 16 Neighbourhood Boss!

From all the insectoid lifeforms that aren’t sentient or behemoth size, the civilised lands don’t fear any the way they fear the Krutnik. These bugs are nigh impossible to exterminate entirely, rapidly numbering into the millions if allowed to fester in the deep wilds and always having at least a few subterranean colonies deep down that are overlooked by even the most capable bug-hunters. Meaning that if these creatures ever plague a planet, they will always plague a planet!

The Beavers are the defensive bugs that make sure that a bunch of tanks can’t just roll into their hive and blast it to smithereens, by building large dams of their own dead and everything else they can get their hands on! Waste not, want not! While the Krutnik disembowel their dead to feed back to their queen, there’s still plenty of edible bits left in the carapace. The biggest bits are usually eaten by the adults, but cleaned out or not the Beaver will eventually come to collect the husk. They create an intricate pile of corpses around the main hive entrances to block it off on the surface, or create a dam in their underground tunnels.

These dams are intentionally made to be almost impossible to climb without half the wall collapsing on you in an avalanche of heavy pointy bits! There are only a few intentionally stable parts constructed to make sure that the wall integrity remains after a collapse or two, and to give the Beaver handholds to walk on without collapsing anything themselves! The dams usually double as a lure for all kinds of carrion and a playground for the hatchlings, which will spend a year or two of their lives in here hunting carrion and seeking for husks with some edible parts left!

The world unfroze and I focused on the Krutnik before me. I stabbed it in its open mouth and the Reaver gurgled on its own blood as I pulled out my spear. The Cleaver was on me the next moment, but just like the one on the surface its sharp but fragile scythe-like arm shattered when it came in contact with my shield. Alexa refused to be traumatised by what happened just moments ago, and went for its eye.

The Cleaver screamed in pain as she pierced it, and I stabbed my spear into its open maw. Several rows of teeth spun aggressively in its mouth like a garbage disposer, but my spear was harder and it just wounded itself grievously as teeth and ichor flew everywhere.

Their other blade arm shattered on my shield, and Alexa yelled defiantly as she took the other eye. Just a bit to my left, Ben kept slashing at the wounded Reaver while Cuddles bravely nibbled on one of its front legs without effect.

I stepped back from the dying and disarmed Cleaver and looked at the Neighbourhood Boss. The Beaver looked like a flat beetle with long legs almost as if it was walking on stilts, each leg grabbing a piece of the dam with its pincer as it deftly tiptoed over the wall of corpses. The creature was about six times as tall as me from limb to limb, but its body was about my size and a half. Its mouth was an eldritch horror situation of several squirming tentacles that occasionally fired a white substance with great accuracy, but it didn’t seem to have a lot of damage output.

Elise already engaged it, the leg joints of this massive creature being an easy target for her airborne form. She was doing well, as her swoop-in strikes didn’t require her to land against a target this high up, allowing her to fall without holding back and redirect her momentum back upwards after striking the Beaver hard. Each time she struck one of the legs, it buckled as sickening cracks echoed on the cavern walls, but the legs didn’t break.

The Beaver shot another web at her, and I noticed that there were already several silk strands hanging from her chest. Thomas fired a Frost bolt at the string and the frozen brittle web shattered as Elise pulled. Thomas didn’t even stop walking, and just kept climbing up the walls to the ceiling where it would be safer for him.

But, as Bosses were wont to do when things got too easy and/or ten seconds passed, a new threat presented itself. Elise struck again and this time one of the Beaver’s legs broke. It screamed like a bear, and the broken leg thrashed.

The dam collapsed under its violence, and I saw it ramming and shaking the other points it was holding on to as well. For two seconds there was just a loud but inevitably irrelevant avalanche as none of us where near the tons of debris falling, and then the dam screamed.

A Young Reaver crawled out of the wreckage of Krutnik husks, spotted Ben and charged at him. Two Young Gatherers were right behind it, and a Leaver crawled out of the dam at another place. And then another Krutnik, and another, and another.

Oh shit, there were a lot of them.

“Ben, get to safety! Alexa, to Thomas!” I shouted, looking around for anything that could help me.

“Where!?” Ben shouted back, looking at the entrance that sealed itself off the moment this Boss battle began and the exit that was now behind a dam and dozens of small Krutnik.

“Ben, grab my hands!” Elise said, floating over to him as her bat disappeared.

Ben obliged and jumped as she flew over. Elise staggered and swayed, but her armour popped out of existence to lighten the load further. Slow but steadily, she rose into the air with Ben hanging below her.

The Beaver shot another string at her, and this time Elise allowed herself to be reeled in. “Now!” She shouted, and Ben quickly let go of one of her hands, popped his Rendering Knife into his hand and swung. The momentum that Elise gained from the Beaver’s pull kept her going up just a little longer, and then her lift slowed down again.

Elise struggled to balance herself and lift Ben up just a little more, and then placed him down on the Beaver’s back. The Beaver tried to shrug him off, but didn’t seem to be able to reach its own back or tilt to the side. Ben still had to hold on tight to not slip off its smooth carapace, but he was safe.

The same didn’t apply to me. Unlike the still young and probably lighter than before Ben, I was way too heavy for Elise to carry. Probably too heavy for her to help me glide down, even. And aside from the dam itself, there wasn’t any high ground for me to take. Nothing except…

I quickly climbed onto the dead Cleaver and positioned my feet in a way that they stood solidly on some of the creature’s spikes. It wasn’t very stable ground, but it was something.

Not a second later, the tide of small critters hit me. Some jumped up biting at Elise as she grabbed Cuddles and flew into the air in the nick of time, but most focussed on the lone target that they could still reach.

I stabbed at the Gatherer that reached me first, but the corpse shifted and bobbed dangerously under my feet and I had to lift up the spear, Gatherer and all, for four seconds before I could pop it back into my inventory. There was no way I was going to stab something and pull it out again without falling into the mass of writhing hatchlings. At this point, there were already over a hundred of them, pooling around my little island.

The first ones tried to use the same spikes that I was using to stand on as handholds, but the ones that came after them weren’t that patient and used their bodies as a ramp to climb themselves. The large Cleaver quickly turned into a tiny spiky island barely larger than my shield, surrounded by roiling and churning waves of angry hatchlings clawing and pulling at each other to reach me.

“It’s going to be one of those days, huh?” I sighed.