The Grand Hall's rancid stench had mellowed, though only slightly, into something marginally more tolerable: a strange mix of vinegar and wilted rose. It had taken two and a half hours of relentless brewing on Bonehead's part to get it there - while he could not smell, upon noticing the discomfort on Esmerelda's face and hearing her complain about the smell, he decided to kill two birds with one stone.
From the cauldron that sat in front of him, green-tinged acid burbled steadily, sending up lazy bubbles that burst with soft hisses, each releasing thin wisps of smoke that drifted up into the vaulted arches overhead.
Bonehead hunched over his workstation, crushing and dropping a final pinch of crushed Gravemouth root into the cauldron with his nimble, skeletal fingers, watching the concoction shift from viridian to a sickly amber as he stirred the contents within the cauldron with his mana.
He grunted with satisfaction, causing his teeth to clack once in approval. Thirty-three flasks sat lined in a row beside him, two rows being neon green while another was a murky yellow color – the result of three successful potion batches.
He reached for one of the daggers he'd use for his experiments, the one with no traces of poison left over from his last experiment with Mycelial Grasp two days ago. Tilting the blade, he sent a pulse of mana into the gloves bearing the same name.
In response to mana being sent into Mycelial Grasp, thin vines sprouted from the gloves, curling over his skeletal fingers and winding along the dagger's hilt. Shortly after, poison oozed down the blade of the dagger and fully coated its blade in a dark green sheen, a fat droplet of Mycelial Grasp poison gathered at the tip before falling with a soft plop into the bubbling cauldron below.
The liquid within shifted immediately, the color dimming, darkening, thickening.
Bonehead tilted his head, curious. "Well," he murmured, "that's new."
Tiny plumes of brown-green smoke rose from the cauldron, and with them came spores. Said spores drifted upward, catching the faint glint of torchlight.
He reached for a crumpled leaf of Sembloom with the intent to test the reaction further, occasionally looking up from his brew towards the still closed Grand Hall doors toward the far side of the hall.
Esmerelda, peacefully, sat in her meditative pose atop the massive dining table they all teleported on, beside the two banners.
But that peaceful expression that had been painting her face had slowly begun to erode as her face contorted into one of disgust.
Bonehead watched from across the room in quiet stillness, the only sound being the quiet boiling of his poison and the low crackle of fire beneath the cauldron. Her expression had gone from tranquil, to tense, to… grim.
Then, without warning, Esmerelda jolted forward with a sharp inhale, like she'd just woken up from a nightmare – while he'd never experienced a nightmare due to his undead nature, he had seen similar looks on his younger brothers who could.
Esmerelda exhaled slowly and steadily as she continued to stare straight at the closed doors of the Grand Hall.
"We're about to have company," she said, breaking the silence. "Not anyone we like."
Bonehead nodded in response to her words. Snapping his fingers, the fire beneath the cauldron snuffed out in an instant. Then, uncaring for the heat, he grabbed his cauldron and tipped it to the side, dumping its contents onto a nearby reanimated ghoul corpse that was already half melted due to his experiments.
The concoction hissed on contact, steam rising violently as the liquid reduced the rotted flesh and soft bones to ooze with small spores quivering at the edges of the wounds his poison inflicted, and slowly began to pop out quivering caps.
He packed everything away in a rush, cauldron, mortars and pestles, drying racks, herb bundles, and the clutter of vials, both full and empty, around where he sat, shoving them into his Spatial Satchel.
However, he kept hold of four acid vials, gripping two in each hand.
As both he and Esmerelda slowly began to approach the large, closed double doors of the Grand Hall, they could see the massive doors shudder.
As the doors were being pulled outward, they could see four figures.
In the middle of the group was a tall male demi-elf with long red hair in light leather armor, and two daggers sheathed across the back of his waist.
[Demi-Elf Lv 9]
Beside him, a human man with short brown hair in thick plate armor pushed open the right door, a massive shield strapped to his back and a broadsword hanging at his waist.
[Human Lv 9]
On the demi-elf's other side, a human woman with long brown hair pushed open the second door. A bow and quiver were slung across her back, a dagger at her side, and wearing light leather armor.
[Human Lv 9]
And behind the demi-elf was a shorter elf with greenish-yellow hair and far more pointier ears, wearing a long robe and numerous earrings. She was wearing a robe with similar colors to her hair and holding up a gnarly-looking staff that stood just as tall as she was.
[Elf Lv 9]
The moment Bonehead spotted the long red-haired figure in the middle, he didn't wait any longer as two vials flew from his hands, soaring through the air before shattering against the demi-elf's upper chest and face – catching him completely off guard as his eyes were zeroed onto the two banners atop the massive dining table.
The thick, green solution sizzled against his leathers, eating through the leather armor in seconds, before then eating his flesh. It blistered and blackened almost immediately, sloughing off in globs as steam rose in greasy ribbons.
The demi-elf let out a shrill howl of pain that echoed throughout the hallway and within the Grand Hall. His hands flew to his face, trying in vain to wipe away the acid that was currently melting through it, causing him to stumble backward on instinct.
His teammates recoiled instinctively, shouting in alarm, but none of them reached for him, instead, they ducked behind the wide doors, shielding themselves from two more vials of acid that shattered against the wall behind them, letting out a massive spray of acid, leaving their rogue standing there, gasping and writhing all on his lonesome.
A sharp whisper of wind cut through the howls and shrieking of pain.
Esmerelda's Wind Arrow punched straight through the side of his skull, exiting clean out the other side, cutting off the demi-elf's shrieking in an instant. He toppled backward, head twisted, blood and acid pooling together beneath his corpse as it twitched for the last few times before going still.
Bonehead hurled two more vials toward the stone just in front of the open doors. They exploded against the ground, coating the entryway in a spreading layer of corrosive sludge, without stopping, he took out another two vials and tossed them into the same area, layering it.
Sick green and yellow acid spread in a rough pool, one and a half meters wide, eating into the marble tiling and releasing rancid fumes.
Raised walls of earth suddenly surged up around it, containing it to be around the entranceway. Esmerelda stood a few meters just behind Bonehead, her wand glowing faintly as she manipulated the spell. The acid now sat in a shallow basin, blocked on all sides by stone walls nearly five meters high.
Only a few slits remained in the walls, just enough for Esmerelda to keep firing her Wind Arrows through them so long as she kept them thin. She hadn't used Manabolts due to them requiring much larger holes, as she hadn't had enough experience manipulating them to be as thin as Wind Arrows could be. As if she kept the same size as usual, the larger holes would've left the barrier vulnerable, as an explosive blast would have destroyed the walls easily.
Through the many slits within the front wall, Esmerelda saw a large figure duck out from behind the right door and start bomb rushing towards the wall, their massive tower shield blocking the Wind Arrows she was firing at him.
Three Wind Arrows lashed out in a tight spread, then four more, then six more. But the warrior coming through didn't stop. His tower shield, broad and thick enough to cover his entire frame, was raised in front of him, with some sort of skill activated atop it that caused her Wind Arrows to glance off of it.
The acid trap didn't slow him as he vaulted over it, and then, with a thunderous crash, he slammed through the Earth Wall, sending out stone and dirt flying into the air as he barreled into the other side like a battering ram.
The instant the tower shield warrior emerged from the crumbled earthen wall, Bonehead was already sprinting toward him, not even hesitating for a moment. Four acid vials were held in his hands, and with quick flicks of his wrists, they were airborne.
The vials struck the front of the shield with a series of wet cracks. The impact splashed acid up the polished metal face, and in the time it took the human warrior to realize what Bonehead had done due to his vision being obscured by the shield, it was too late. Acid spread in branching patterns across the shield as the metal wept into liquid, sloughing off in thick, bubbling strands.
"What the f–?" the warrior shouted in both pain and surprise as acidic liquid metal splashed onto his right arm, but before he could finish his sentence, Bonehead's bony fist whipped around the melting edge of the shield and crashed into his temple, sending his head snapping sideways with a grunt.
The human staggered, dazed by the sudden strike.
Bonehead didn't let up; he followed with a rapid flurry of blows, driving his knuckles again and again into the man's side, jaw, shoulder, and any exposed areas that weren't protected by the plated steel on his leather armor.
Screeches of mana filled the air as a barrage of Manabolts shrieked in from the rear of the enemy line, arcing towards Bonehead from the elf mage who had stayed back.
Bonehead barely spared them a glance, as every Manabolt was intercepted mid-air by an equal number of dense Manashields, each one flickering into existence at the last second, courtesy of Esmerelda. The bolts detonated with sharp cracks, their impacts briefly flooding the Grand Hall with bursts of pale blue light.
Esmerelda raised her wand, the tip humming as she turned her attention to the mage who attacked her friend. With a sharp flick, she launched the broken marble tiles sitting below the shallow acid pool straight toward the elf faster than she could react to.
She let out high-pitched shrieking as the acid easily melted through her robes and flesh – far easier than it did with the rogue due to her far lower Vitality. Her limbs went rigid before she collapsed backward into a twitching heap, the acid hissing as it continued eating through what little was left of her body.
"Two down," Esmerelda muttered under her breath, wand still raised, waiting for the archer to come out of hiding.
Back at the frontline, Bonehead's skull whipped to the side as the shield warrior –now shieldless, landed a heavy punch that tore off his lower jaw from his skull, simultaneously knocking the hood of Bonehead's robe back and exposing his bare skull.
The impact made a sharp crack, but Bonehead didn't flinch as his lower jaw flew straight off his head. Instead, his empty sockets turned to meet the warrior's gaze directly.
The undead alchemist's fist lashed out in return, cracking the man clean across the chin with a right cross. A sickening thunk echoed out as the warrior stumbled backward – while Bonehead had far lower strength than his opponent, that didn't mean he was under the warrior's mercy, no, that meant he just needed to outskill him.
He exchanged a series of blows with the warrior, making sure that each one of his strikes landed with as much brutal force as he could muster, as with every strike the warrior sent his way, his bones would fracture and spiderweb-like cracks would appear atop them.
Then, as the warrior saw an opening within Bonehead's guard, he ducked under his jab and let out a brutal strike that tore his shoulder and entire right arm clear off.
But unlike how he expected Bonehead to react to his arm being torn right off, he surged forward, driving a knee into the warrior's gut with enough force to lift him slightly off the ground as the strike he just gave Bonehead brought him out of his defensive stance.
The man coughed violently as he stumbled backwards, spitting out blood that splattered against the dirtied marble tiling beneath them.
"Wha…?" the warrior mumbled, voice dazed. He blinked, swaying on his feet, suddenly drenched in sweat and looking gaunt, like his vital energy had been suddenly drained all at once.
Bonehead stared him down, his lower jaw still missing from his face, and said, "Never fight an Alchemist up close, if they willingly run towards you," he said, and then raised his hand.
In doing so, barely visible, thin needles extended from his knuckles. Each one was coated in a faint green residue. He'd triggered the secondary function of Mycelial Grasp from the very start of the melee, piercing and injecting the warrior with poison-tipped spikes during the flurry of strikes.
The warrior's eyes rolled up as mushroom-like growths began to emerge from across his torso and the side of his face.
He collapsed without another sound.
Bonehead stood over him, flexing his hand once. The needles retracted, slipping back into the fleshless fingers like they'd never been there at all.
He turned slowly, glancing toward the still-open Grand Hall doors. "Where's the last one?" he asked.
Esmerelda, already putting away her wand, didn't look up. "Gone," she said simply. "She ran off the second I acid-bathed their mage. Slipped out the hall and ran toward where Deacon, Sam, and Jass were last headed."
"Huh," Bonehead muttered. "So much for dramatic final stands." He gave the corpse at his feet a nudge with one toe-bone, then started walking toward the entrance.
"Why'd we kill them outright?" he asked as he passed Esmerelda, voice casual.
"Bad vibes," Esmerelda replied, nodding once. "Spirits didn't like them."
"Ah," Bonehead said in understanding. "Fair enough."
Together, they made their way to the doorway, the toxic air thick behind them, blood and acid slicking the floor. Just as Bonehead reached to pull the heavy door closed, something caught his eye.
Half hidden behind the right door, partially trampled and singed, was a fallen yellow banner.
Embroidered in careful orange thread were the words: Legends of the Sun.