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[Author’s Note: The name “The Chamber” is really ominous and cool sounding, and it works two ways! It refers to the literal chamber you fight Remeraux in, but it’s also a play on the phrase “One in the Chamber.” Remeraux is the One you fight in The Chamber, but the phrase also refers to the one bullet loaded into a revolver chamber during a game of Russian Roulette. Fitting, considering this is your final duel, and in the end fate will decide the victor.]
Intro cutscene: The camera pans around the arena: a circular platform with walls lined with Imperial warmachina moving up and down on conveyor belts with hooks. The camera pans down to Remeraux, who cracks her neck twice before assuming her combat stance.
Mechanics:
Ring of Fire: Remeraux creates a ring of fire around the edge of the platform that persists throughout the encounter. Touching this ring deals 9999999 damage.
Dialogue:
- “It’s just you an’ me now. Try an’ make it interesting.”
Powder Charge: Remeraux tosses a grenade into the air that explodes over the party. This afflicts party members with either Astral Powder or Umbral Embers (see Imbued Terminus Est). This ability always precedes casts of Imbued Terminus Est.
Imbued Terminus Est: Remeraux moves at hyper-speed, leaving after-images around the arena that create white and black Terminus Est X’s around its edge. When Remeraux casts Open Fire, each X will shoot a line AoE across the room, affecting those hit with either Astral Powder or Umbral Embers debuffs. Players affected with both debuffs will explode for massive damage in a small AoE around them. Remeraux will repeat this move three times, in alternating patterns.
[Author’s Note: I don't think there's been a significant gunblade-wielding Garlean that hasn't cast the ability Terminus Est in some way, shape or form, and considering that Werlyt made a big deal of Terminus Est being one of Gaius's signature abilities, I knew Remeraux had to have her own version. As we know, Remeraux in the Main Universe is a Red Mage, and here she fights like a hybrid between a Red Mage and a Gunbreaker. Sprinkle a little Red Mage magic over a classic Garlean ability, and you get Imbued Terminus Est!]
Dialogue:
- “Eyes on the prize!”
- “You’re gonna love this!”
- “C’mon! Dance for me!”
If a target is affected by Crimson Ignition:
- “Talk about missing yer mark!”
- “Yannow, I expected better!”
- “What, too hot to handle?”
- Astral Powder: “Coated in astral-aligned gunpowder.” If the target is also affected with Umbral Embers, causes Crimson Ignition
- Umbral Embers: “Coated in umbral-aligned embers.” If the target is also affected with Astral Powder, causes Crimson Ignition
- Crimson Ignition: Target explodes, dealing high-potency magic damage in a small AoE around them.
Crimson Edge: Tankbuster. Remeraux fires ‘The Big One,’ hitting the target for heavy damage. This move affects the target with a Physical Vulnerability Up Debuff for 60 seconds, as well as a 10 second burn for heavy damage.
Dialogue:
- “Here comes the big one!”
- “Made this one extra-special!”
- “Eat this!”
Explosive Charge: Remeraux deploys six landmines around the arena that vanish after a brief channel. Cloaked mines persist for 30 seconds, and deal heavy damage in a small AoE if touched by players.
- Dialogue:
- “Watch your step!”
- “Deployin’ charges.”
Sweeping the Room: Remeraux flash-steps to one of the four cardinal edges of the arena, and after a 5-second channel she swings her gunblade, causing a room-wide knockback.
Dialogue:
- “An’ here’s the wind-up….”
- “Bon voyage!”
- “Oi! Head’s up!”
True Grit: Remeraux passively gains grit, shown in her Grit Gauge. Once she reaches 100 grit, Remeraux will cast Imbued Roulette. Afterwards, the gauge will reset, and start accumulating grit anew.
Imbued Roulette: Remeraux leaps to the center of the arena, and spins the barrel of her gunblade. She fires into the air, and elemental energy begins to swirl around her gunblade during a short channel, its element indicating what ability is coming next. At the end of the channel, she will thrust her gunblade into the ground and cast one of six abilities at random: Imbued Roulette: Fire, Ice, Water, Wind, Earth, or Levin. There is no fixed order for these abilities, but she only casts each one once, for a total of six Imbued Roulettes over the course of the fight.
[Author’s Note: For her other signature ability, I noticed that there were six elements on the aetherial wheel, and six chambers in a revolver. The idea of Russian Roulette was still on my mind, and I thought that it would be cool to have Remeraux spin the chamber of her gunblade and firing whichever elemental cartridge it stopped on. Since the order you get the six different Imbued Roulette casts would be different every time, I imagine it'd be a little tricky to prog. (I guess she’s just lucky though, because she hits a fresh cartridge every time she casts!)]
Dialogue:
- (1st cast) “You’re testin’ my patience!”
- (2nd cast) “Here’s what happens when you really piss me off!”
- (3rd cast) “Enough… Stand still and die already!”
- (4th cast) “You know what? I’m kind of impressed! But, reckon you can handle another?”
- (5th cast) “Running out of rounds… but this one’s a doozy.”
- (6th cast) “No… It’s not gonna end like this. I swear it!”
Imbued Roulette: Fire: Remeraux targets the arena with six large cone AoEs radiating from the center of the room, leaving small safe zones. Players are also marked with Pyretic, causing massive damage if they move before the 5 second debuff expires.
Imbued Roulette: Ice: Remeraux coats the floor in ice, and targets each healer with either Astral Avalanche or Umbral Avalanche. Remeraux will also summon a blizzard, forcing players to continue moving or be afflicted with Deep Freeze.
- Astral Avalanche: Stack AoE that affects all targets hit with Astral Powder for 3 seconds.
- Umbral Avalanche: Stack AoE that affects all targets hit with Umbral Embers for 3 seconds.
Imbued Roulette: Water: Remeraux channels an AoE knockback, and creates large puddle AoEs on the ground. Touching a puddle affects players with Dropsy. After the first knockback, puddles will disappear and respawn in new locations. Then, Remeraux will channel a second knockback.
Imbued Roulette: Wind: Remeraux spawns two different types of orbs, Gale Charge and Vortex Charge, around the arena. Winds whip at the party, affecting players room-wide pulses of damage every server tick.
- Gale Charge: After a short delay, targets the ground with a point-blank AoE
- Vortex Charge: After a short delay, targets the ground with a donut AoE.
Imbued Roulette: Earth: Remeraux causes tremors, spawning 3 donut AoEs that radiate out from the center of the room, one hitting every 3 seconds. After hitting the edge of the arena, they will radiate back towards the center. Each player will also be marked with Instant Stalactite.
- Instant Stalactite: A stalactite emerges from the ground, dealing magic damage in an AoE under the target. Targets hit are affected with a Magic Resist Down Debuff for 3 seconds. This debuff can stack.
Imbued Roulette: Levin: Remeraux covers the floor with lightning in a large AoE in the center of the room. Players in the electrified floor take heavy magic damage over time. All players are targeted with Homing Bolts.
- Homing Bolts: Lightning strikes at the player’s heels. Six ground AoEs will follow the player’s position, hitting once every server tick. Players hit will receive a Magic Resist Down debuff with a 5 second duration.
Mechanics Overlap: Between Imbued Roulette casts, Remeraux’s mechanics will return to normal, but with new overlaps.
- Explosive Charges will be cast before Sweeping the Room, requiring players to avoid the land mines during the knockback.
- Imbued Terminus Est will be cast before Sweeping the Room, requiring players to be knocked back into the right color line AoEs.
- Explosive Charges will be cast before Imbued Terminus Est, limiting the space that players have to maneuver into the right color AoEs.
- Between Imbued Roulettes 5 and 6, Remeraux will cast both Explosive Charges and Imbued Terminus Est before Sweeping the Room.
End of the Line: Remeraux casts her limit break. She flash-steps all around the arena, creating hundreds of Terminus Ests in a dome around the Arena during a long channel. At the end of the channel, Remeraux spawns a large blade of burning aether from the hilt of her gunblade, swinging it down at the arena and causing all of the Terminus Ests to fire, dealing massive damage to the entire arena.
Dialogue:
-
“You’ve had your fun, but I’m afraid this is the end of the line.
Now, I’ll show you what I’m really made of. Every burn, every scar, all of it! You’ll take no more from me!
Milia Terminus Est. FIRE!”
- The party dies: “Hmph. Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
- The party survives: “Impossible. Nobody’s survived that before….! But this changes nothin’, you hear me? Nothin’! I’ll have your heart!!!”
Crimson Overload: Enrage ability. Remeraux transcends all human limitations. Ramping slowly over time, Remeraux’s auto attacks gain increasing fire damage. In addition, wicked flames eminate from Remeraux, dealing pulsing room-wide damage that increases over time. Debris begins to fall from the ceiling, targeting the ground with heavy AoE damage at random locations.
[Author’s Note: Remeraux puts on a cool and jovial front, but throughout her story you always could tell that underneath is just anger, bitterness, and resentment. Now that you’ve pushed her to the edge, her anger is all she has left, and I wanted to mechanically represent it destroying everything around her. It’s now literally exploding, tearing her whole Castrum down around her and the party’s ears. She also stops using all of her clever toys, and falls back on brute strength entirely. I also love the idea of a DPS race between the boss and the party: Throughout the whole fight they’ve been focusing on complex mechanics, but they’re at the home stretch now: all they have to do is focus on their rotation. (And making sure they don’t get squished by the falling debris!) With the ramping damage though, they can’t relax too much: they’ll be panicking before the end and I’m sure healers will be crying in relief when they get their first clear!]