#s grade

[boss-fight-bestiary]

Pharloom Bestiary - #33. Tormented Trobbio

Depressed thespian, consumed by the melancholy of a collapsing world.

This one chose to embrace the doom to come. I shall not share such easy surrender.

Classification: Paragon

I had my doubts over if this bug had truly died, and they were confirmed when I received a formal invitation to his stage for one final performance. It seems that this thespian has found a muse within the impending apocalypse of the void, and embraced this as a heightened layer of theatrical tragedy. All of the passion, eccentricity and energy of my first encounter with him was heightened here, as he filled his arena with lights and music and lots and lots of winds and pyrotechnics. Dare I say I only barely escaped with my shell intact - but I do believe that there is something about this Trobbio figure that I will find endlessly compelling. Needless to say, I must reluctantly consider myself one of his hordes of fans.

Grade: S

[leagueoflegends-confessions]

Got an S- on Taric in ARAM with a score of 2/1/32. It felt so nice to finally get my second S ever (other was on Darius once) since I started playing this year. All the CC on Taric is obnoxiously trolly since I was able to keep people from dying and restore their health when they needed it most. I really like Taric now.

Artwork by vicius96

[boss-fight-bestiary]

Pharloom Bestiary - #18. Trobbio

Haughty thespian convinced that only dazzling performance can raise Pharloom from the throes of death.

His desire to see Pharloom saved may have been well intentioned, but he seemed quite happy for others to die upon the stage in pursuit of his goal.

Classification: Guardian

Trobbio the Tragedian, seemingly an extremely popular and influential figure in the Citadel at its height, now one of the few remaining bugs with all of their wits and senses intact (a possibly disputable description). Yet he continues to perform even to his now empty audience. Is this tragedy, or is it folly? Such questions are for scholars and poets. For me, it was a comedy, but not one I didn't thoroughly enjoy. Like Grimm before him in Hollow Knight, this theater bug has a touch of warrior's spirit within him. Perhaps his ego has grown as wildly out of control as the fluff around his neck, but he knows how to fight, he knows how to use his stage as a tool and a weapon, and he knows how to do it all with style. Perhaps he will make a fan out of me yet - if he did fake his own death for dramatic effect, as I suspect.

Grade: S

[boss-fight-bestiary]

Pharloom Bestiary - #44. Skarrsinger Karmelita

Song queen of the Skarr and their most talented warrior.

This graceful ruler once possessed skill to rival my own. At her youthful peak, her voice united all Skarr in her service.

Classification: Paragon

For a people as strong and hardy as the Skarr, I was expecting their figurehead to be a bug in the manner of Crust King Khann; huge, imposing, and brimming with overwhelming brute force. Nothing could have prepared me for the truth of the matter; this lithe, beautiful and extremely talented bug that may very well have been the most powerful bug in the kingdom on her own terms. As I traveled back into her memories and fought her in her prime, I came face to face with an overwhelming tirade of swift blows from her buzzsaw-like sickles. What is the most remarkable is that she barely even seemed to have broken a sweat the entire time. I fought for my life, dodging and parrying blow after blow and desperately struggling to match the pace of her dance, and only for the briefest of moments did she ever even need to catch her breath. Though nowadays Karmelita is long past her prime, I will forever remember her beauty and her skill and her command of form and motion as the most deadly combination of grace and lethality I have ever seen from a mortal bug.

Grade: S

[boss-fight-bestiary]

Pharloom Bestiary - #15. Cogwork Dancers

Automatons of impeccable construction, welcoming entrants to their chambers with a display of deadly dance.

Two cogwork bugs, and yet the soul seemed singular? A sad, yet masterful imitation of life, imbued inside shells of iron.

Classification: Guardian

There is corruption and horror within the Citadel of Song, but there is also a beauty that is difficult to describe, and nothing I have found here thus far showcases this dichotomy better than the Cogwork Dancers near the Citadel's core. I do not know what bugs these automatons were modeled after, but they very clearly possess the soul of someone - but who?

Even in this form, there is clear love and care put into their construction, and though they mainly appear to be guardian machines without much (if any) autonomy of their own, they still appear to be madly devoted to one another. Together, they work as one unit, twirling and dashing about the arena to their own beat, defining the flow of combat even as they ground themselves around each other. They remind me of the Mantis Lords from Hallownest, but somehow even more graceful, and even more beautiful.

When I struck down one, the other seemed lost and broken without it, no longer dancing to a tune, no longer a threat. I have fought and killed many creatures during my time seeking power, but few deaths have left me as heartbroken as this one. Whoever this bug was, I hope they find their partner again in the realm beyond dreams, and I hope they rest well.

Grade: S

[boss-fight-bestiary]

Pharloom Bestiary - #8. Widow

Crazed fanatic able to guide Pharloom's haunted Silk by music played upon it.

Her body seemed a Weaver's, but her mask had been forcibly removed, and her own Silk was bound useless by heavy pins lodged through her spine.

Classification: Guardian

The town of Bellhart is a quiet and charming residence built amongst the massive bells of the bellways - and yet, when I first found it, it had been morphed into something far more sinister. All of the inhabitants were strung up and immobilized, held captive by some secret force. Through the Shellwood, I found an entrance to the dark and winding paths above the town, where I came upon the source of the haunting - a mad weaver, bound to a greater power, tending its threads and yet enslaved to them. She was the agent of the town's captivity, and I drew my needle to cut her down. I was not aware of the challenge I was in for.

Nothing else so far, not even the blows I exchanged with the guardian Lace, has so thoroughly opened my eyes to the true power latent in Pharloom. This weaver, dubbed Widow, is only a slave to this power, unable to truly create it on her own, and yet she wielded it with a force and frenzy the likes of which I couldn't have expected. Our battle was a whirlwind of bells and silk that took an incredible level of reflexes to weave and strike between. Even when I seemed to strike her down, her fervor only intensified, until I finally took her life for good. I have freed the town of Bellhart, and they are grateful, but I feel a genuine sense of dread at what struggles yet lay ahead.

Grade: S

[boss-fight-bestiary]

Hallownest Bestiary - #44. Pure Vessel

Chosen vessel, raised and trained to prime form.

"Deepest silence in holy shell, Given nail and named a Knight, Bound by chain and egg and spell, Hear Our plea! Reveal thy Light!"

– Prayer to the Vessel

Classification: Paragon

I had begun to hope that somewhere, in the dream realm, I would find a true remnant of the hollow knight at their full strength, and here in Godhome in the Pantheon of the Knight, I found them. Hallownest's greatest and most horrifying creation, a being crafted to contain the power of the radiance itself. Their wordless shrieks seemed to fill the arena regardless of their inaudibility as it pummeled my defenses with thrusts and swipes and a number of deadly spells. This creature that purportedly had no mind to think seemed to make each strike with cold, calculated efficiency. What I wouldn't give to have met this being in their prime in the physical realm. Even now that our battle has concluded, it lingers in my mind, a haunting and awe-inspiring memory of a being like no other.

Grade: S

[boss-fight-bestiary]

New Kunlun Bestiary - #7. Lady Ethereal

One of the Ten Sols in the Council and responsible for managing the Cortex Center. Lady Ethereal is, for reasons unknown, exhibiting mental anomalies.

As the creator of the Soulscape system, Lady Ethereal knew in advance that the system had major flaws. However, due to pressure from the situation, she was not able to prevent its mass deployment. The death of her colleagues hung heavy around her neck and she eventually lost the ability to distinguish between dreams and reality.

Class: Sol

Lady Ethereal, the fifth sol, and creator of the soulscape system, a guilty conscience trapped in her own neverending nightmare. Unlike the past sols, who sought to prevent their own fates, deep down, Lady Ethereal is tormented by her guilt, and needed resolution. But her trauma and her nightmares have warped her sense of self, and she has become a nightmarish creature of retribution, come for my own sins as well as hers. In her soulscape I was at the whim of her godlike powers, able to bend the field at a whim and be in multiple places at once, but even the soulscape has its limitations, and without a clear and focused mind one cannot wield it against another properly. Lady Ethereal's powers were based more in illusion than reality, as is everything about the soulscape, and that was the key to defeating her.

But illusions of course can be powerful things, especially to a mind as twisted by guilt and shame and horror as hers. Lady Ethereal is trapped in a prison reinforced by centuries of self-loathing and trauma, and even being within it put me in danger. It took everything to defeat her manifested demons and return with her seal. And even though she is gone now, her nightmare dispersed and her physical form withered away long ago, I will ensure her her mistakes are not forgotten, and her suffering has not been in vain.

Grade: S